Cholesterol, the Great Bluff
Icarus Films • 1h 22m
Directed by Anne Georget • Documentary • 2016 • 82 minutes
For more than six decades, doctors, nutritionists, and public health officials have been waging a war against high cholesterol in an effort to fight heart disease. It’s a war that has seen the demonization of saturated fats, the rise and fall of hydrogenated oils, and the introduction of several generations of “miracle” drugs.
But what if the basic premise linking cholesterol and heart disease is wrong?
CHOLESTEROL, THE GREAT BLUFF convincingly argues that the link between cholesterol and heart disease is tenuous – and that its persistence results from a potent mix of bad science, entrenched interests, and pharmaceutical profits. As the film makes clear, researchers who made any serious attempt to study other hypotheses—that sugar led to vascular disease, for instance—found themselves threatened, their research funding cut and their careers derailed. CHOLESTEROL, THE GREAT BLUFF deploys an array of authoritative and engaging experts to attack the foundations of the cholesterol hypothesis.
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