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Comment by abtinf | Hacker News Reader

Huh, so the only side effect of eating more than 6lbs of cheese every day for almost a year is a minor painless cosmetic issue?

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The atherosclerosis is invisible, until it suddenly isn't.

Everyone will have a little bit of plaque, even if you try to eat well. Teenagers will already have traces of it before they reach adulthood. All you can do is try to slow down the buildup. And, well, this ain't it.

Genuine question, as far as I can tell there seems to be some debate currently about weather high saturated fat diets are linked with heart disease. Does atherosclerosis fall into this debate too?

Yes, high SFA diets are associated with increased risk of CVD via atherosclerosis as a result of the increase in ApoB concentration in the blood (response to retention hypothesis).

This review paper is a really good overview of the model, and it's actually pretty approachable: https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/41/24/2313/573522...

Thanks

I suppose that's true normally, but I was pleased to read that you can probably reverse it if you make radical enough changes:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/ask_the_doctor_i...

... where "radical enough change" in this article refers to the period of starvation during WW2!

My understanding is that we don't have contemporary evidence of people successfully reverting arterial plaque, but I admit the studies probably didn't faithfully reproduce these starvation conditions!

There’s some evidence of a reduction of intima-media thickness of both common carotid arteries through a… less intense diet.

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/STROKEAHA.120.0...

Thank you. Seems like between this and other results, the consensus is now that reversal has been demonstrated pretty conclusively. I've updated!

Gaza ? /s

That's not even a remotely good takeaway from this. The paper is specifically focused on the "yellowish nodules", ultimately diagnosed as xanthelasma. It's not meant to be a thorough assessment of the guy's health. It doesn't imply anything about other ailments or lack thereof.

And his cholesterol was 5 times normal.

That’s my question — the abstract says he seemed otherwise healthy except for this cosmetic issue.

What is normal?

> The patient’s cholesterol level exceeded 1000 mg/dL ...significantly higher than his baseline of level of 210 to 300 mg/dL.

Total less than 200 mg/dL.

... not 1000 mg/dL.

Until the cardiac arrest.

The abstract did not make that claim.

The abstract mentions the patients cholesterol level is 1000mg/dL which is at least 4 times more than the "highly dangerous" bracket. Evidence seems to show that xanthelasma (the nodules seen on this person) can have a link to a higher risk of atherosclerosis, which is linked to high cholesterol in the first place. This will not be "asymptomatic" for ever.

But others do

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