Word: highes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Nonetheless, the new findings have intensified debate about whether diuretics should remain a first-line option for treating high blood pressure. Many doctors support continued widespread use, arguing that newer, alternative drugs are more expensive and that their long-term side effects have not been as well established. But others are pressing for more restricted use of water pills. At the least, say some, patients who have diabetes probably should not be taking diuretics...
...excerpted in the September issue of the Atlantic magazine, Thomas Moore, a Washington-based writer, contends that overzealous crusaders against cholesterol have exaggerated the benefits of low-fat diets. Moore, who spent four years reviewing the scientific literature on the subject, acknowledges that researchers have established a link between high cholesterol and increased risk of heart disease. He argues, however, that diet modification cannot do much to lower cholesterol, that reducing blood levels of the suspect substance has not been proved to prolong life and that cholesterol-lowering drugs may carry more risks than benefits. Moore's readers are likely...
None of Moore's arguments, however, disprove the basic contention that high- cholesterol diets are potentially hazardous. The evidence against cholesterol is stronger than he implies. If his readers go back to pouring on the gravy and spreading the butter, then the book will have done them a disservice...
Unfortunately, heart disease is a hideously complex phenomenon. Diet is just one of a panoply of risk factors, which also include heredity, smoking, high blood pressure and obesity. Even the idea that cholesterol is "bad" is seriously flawed, since the chemical is produced naturally in the body and is vital to the functioning of human cells. It is carried in the bloodstream by two types of molecules: low-density lipoproteins (LDL) and high-density lipoproteins (HDL). Too much LDL is harmful because it contributes to the accumulation of fatty deposits that block arteries, but large amounts of HDL are thought...
...Even more controversial is Moore's suspicion that lowering cholesterol does not increase one's odds for a longer life. In the major studies that have probed this issue, people with low cholesterol got heart disease less often than those with high levels. But, as Moore points out, the low-cholesterol people did not live longer on average, because some of them died from other ailments. Whether this was by chance or the result of low cholesterol remains an open question. That puzzling outcome does not overly impress most researchers. They feel that as additional, longer studies are completed...