Dr. Mark Gordon on health: what the evidence says · JRE #1056
SUBJECT: HEALTH
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
It tells us, like a SmithKline-Beacham study that was done, 50% of all heart attacks happen in people with normal or low levels of cholesterol.
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
Mark Gordon attributed the statistic that roughly half of all heart attacks occur in people with normal or low cholesterol to a "SmithKline-Beecham study." No such SmithKline-Beecham study could be located in the peer-reviewed literature or industry records searched. The underlying figure, however, closely matches real published data: a 2009 American Heart Journal analysis of 136,905 U.S. hospitalizations in the AHA's Get With The Guidelines registry (Sachdeva et al.) found that nearly half of patients admitted with coronary artery disease had LDL cholesterol below 100 mg/dL, the guideline-defined 'optimal' level. A separate clinical review of cholesterol-skeptic claims traces the closely related and often-repeated '52% of heart attack patients have normal cholesterol' statistic to a 2008 American Heart Journal study by Ghandehari et al., again with no connection to SmithKline Beecham. The approximate figure Gordon cites is therefore well-supported by legitimate registry data, but his specific attribution to a 'SmithKline-Beecham study' appears to be a misattribution with no identifiable primary source.