You challenged my statement that reducing LDL levels would reduce and reverse plaque buildup
No, I didn't.
I challenged your statement that reducing LDL levels to below 70 reverses plaque buildup. Your original statement and the revised one are different in two critical ways. The first is the addition of "reduce," which could redundantly mean "reverse" (absolute reduction) but could also mean the "reduce the growth of" (relative reduction). The second is the difference between a specific level of 70 and no specific level. I gave you a chance to modify your premise statement before presenting your evidence but you didn't take it. So you pull a bait and switch and call me stupid for not falling for it?
I try to avoid ascribing motive to people when they insist on obviously aberrant positions so I don't presume to know why you would do that, even whether it's intentional or not. Perhaps you really don't have the critical thinking capacity (dare I say "intelligence") or the objectivity to differentiate between a statement that TeamX beat TeamY by a score of 10-7 when the score shows that the game was between Team X and TeamZ and it ended in a 7-7 tie. Or perhaps you think you can bluff or bully your way out of an unsupportable position or simply outlast me. Maybe neither, maybe both. I don't have sufficient evidence to come to a firm conclusion about your motive. But it's unequivocally the case that the evidence you offered does not confirm your stated premise. Why you continue to insist on unsupportable positions is an open question, one that engages my curiosity.
Had you changed your premise to "reducing LDL levels would reduce and reverse plaque buildup" I would have still picked at it. What that study actually shows is that, for people with symptomatic CAD and moderate to high LDL, taking megadoses of Lipitor (not lowering LDL) can halt the progression of plaque buildup. It doesn't address primary prevention. It doesn't claim the reduction of LDL as causal. And it doesn't demonstrate reversal (although it gets close), merely checking the further progression.
Here are the conclusions from the study abstract:
"CONCLUSIONS: For patients with coronary heart disease, intensive lipid-lowering treatment with atorvastatin reduced progression of coronary atherosclerosis compared with pravastatin. Compared with baseline values, patients treated with atorvastatin had no change in atheroma burden, whereas patients treated with pravastatin showed progression of coronary atherosclerosis. These differences may be related to the greater reduction in atherogenic lipoproteins and C- reactive protein in patients treated with atorvastatin."
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
I'm beginning to think you're not very bright... I won't waste much more time discussing science with a person who can't grasp the concepts...
I already pointed out to you upstream your use of projection. That's an easily recognizable behavior. It's when the wallflower calls the beauty queen "ugly." It is not a judgment of the target but rather a reflection of the insecurities of the name-caller.
what qualifies you to question the research of highly qualified professionals in their fields... in that regard what qualifies you to question the research of highly qualified professionals in their fields... Please provide me a list of your publications and field of expertise....
So, we're back to that. What qualifies me is that I can read critically.
You do not need to be a published expert on football to know that TeamY is not the same as TeamZ or that a 10-7 win is not the same as a 7-7 tie. You need only be able to read the scoreboard competently. Professional qualifications come into play when opinions on technical subjects are at issue. When published facts are at issue, reading skills are the only qualification needed. I am not questioning "the research of highly qualified professionals in their fields." I have no issue with the results of that study or with the folks who performed it. If you still think that I don't "grasp the concepts," go read the abstract and show me where I have misread.
Further engaging my curiosity is your non-response to my question about why you started in by challenging the science behind my statement, which has a right and wrong answer, rather than rationing, which is a matter of opinion. There was no way to effectively challenge my notion that the effectiveness of using statins to lower LDL has not been shown to be effective for primary care. I knew that there were no scientific data out there to contradict my statement. OTOH, you could easily have challenged my criteria for "improper use," which is a judgment having to do with rationing. Not only did you not do so, you didn't respond when I asked you why.
Curiouser and curiouser... |
