Like the many alternative MDs, nutritionists and dietary investigative journalists I follow, Dr. Aseem Malhotra, cardiologist and author, chants the same mantra: We got nutrition and chronic illness wrong. LDL cholesterol is not responsible for heart attacks, sugar and insulin resistance are, and statins are no wonder drug.

As a cardiologist his primary focus is heart disease. He relates a story of when he worked in the ER and doctors, himself included, put patients with heart attacks on statins before they even rolled them into the operating room. Now says Malhotra, it’s clear, statins benefit few and cause muscle aches and fatigue for many.

You can see this very informative interview between Malhotra and Dr. Mark Hyman, including their conversation about medical bias, in this episode of Hyman’s series, The Doctor’s Pharmacy. 

It really struck me how vulnerable we are as patients not knowing what to believe from our doctors, the government, the media.

A central focus of Malhotra’s work is as a champion of transparency in medicine. His conversation with Hyman, as I said, about how unreliable and biased the medical research that gets translated into the medical guidelines doctors follow, is frightening.

“Only approximately seven percent of clinical studies for medical therapies fulfill criteria for being both high quality and relevant to patients,” said Malhotra. Hyman returned with, “JAMA published an article that only ten percent of cardiology guidelines are based on good science.”

All to say, where does that leave us patients? More than ever you must do the research yourself and choose what you think makes sense for you.

I am only somewhat comforted by the fact that more respected doctors and journalists are exposing much of medical and nutritional science that has long been suppressed. We are finally reaching a tipping point where it is more available and more discussed, and being taken seriously.