Reddit reviews Know Your Fats : The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils and Cholesterol

>why do so many doctors stand behind these drugs, the money?

That's one big reason among several, yes. Maybe not money directly, but there are always the nice little gifts, the friendly sales rep with his helpful "research" to save them time chasing down and analysing debate between researchers, and the corporate-sponsored medical conferences in exotic countries etc (I personally know a doctor who loves going on these every year). There's also the little item that if your research funding comes from corporations and "non-profit" organisations with funding links to the corporate world, you are less likely to want to bite the hand that feeds you.

Re the logic, isn't it pretty obvious? You have a drug that is supposed to promote heart health which actually puts it at risk. I feel sorry for the trusting people who suffered or perhaps even died before it was realised that statin-induced Co-enzyme Q10 deficiency causes serious harm. And the problems of statins aren't just related to CoQ10. Statins suppress one of the precursors of CoQ10 and cholesterol, HMG-CoA reductase. That enzyme is a precursor about half a dozen steps prior to cholesterol - which means that about five other substances besides cholesterol are suppressed when a statin drug is present. Cholesterol of course is used to make other things, like the sex hormones estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. Like bile, which helps with the absorbtion of fat and the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. Like the "stress hormone" cortisol. Cholesterol is also a precursor for the body's synthesis of Vitamin D (so lowering it not only retards absorbtion of Vitamin D through food, but also retards your skin generating Vitamin D when sunshine hits it). Vitamin D is needed for proper bone mineralisation, and is also believed to have an anti-cancer effect. As well as the liver, the brain manufactures cholesterol but Lipitor can cross the blood-brain barrier and stop production there too. As cholesterol comprises a significant portion of the brain and is necessary for proper mental function, it is no wonder that slowness, forgetfulness, and even transient global amnesia are known symptoms of statin use.

I am related to someone who is taking Lipitor right now. He is taking co-enzyme Q10 and still suffering muscular aches and pains, and cannot raise his arms above shoulder-level any more, the pain is so great if he tries. He also suffers from an overwhelming tiredness shortly after taking his fix, and becomes a little slow at following the thread of conversations. His faith in his personal doctor is absolute, and no matter how many books written by DOCTORS I place in front of him to read, his faith in Lipitor and his Medical Priest sustain him like some sort of cult, even though I see it wearing him down before my despairing eyes. Interestingly, the white-coated Priest has been presented with Dr Graveline's first book on Lipitor, and did not choose to contend with it at all. His response to his patient was that "the choice to stop or continue taking it is yours".

When you learn from members of the international medical community that high cholesterol has not been proven as the cause of heart disease and how the stated reason for using statins is flawed by politics, profit and junk science, and there is no medically useful reason to take these dangerous statin drugs at all, you tend to want to boil over in fury.

Some books for you to check out:

The Great Cholesterol Con, by Malcolm Kendrick MD (2007)

The Cholesterol Myths, by Uffe Ravnskov MD PhD (2000, 2002)

The Great Cholesterol Con, by Anthony Colpo (2006) - forward by Ravnskov & contains nearly 1500 citations to medical journals and research trial reports.

Know Your Fats: The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils and Cholesterol, by Mary Enig PhD (2000) - a bit dry for the lay reader, plunges into lipid chemistry, but highly informative. Enig was among researchers who became concerned about trans fats way back in the 1970s.

The Heart Revolution: The Extraordinary Discovery That Finally Laid the Cholesterol Myth to Rest, by Kilmer Mccully MD & Martha Mccully (2000)

Lipitor: Thief of Memory, by Duane Graveline MD (2006)

Statin Drugs Side Effects and the Misguided War on Cholesterol, by Duane Graveline MD (2008)

Those books have plenty of academic and scientific citations for you to seek further.

Natural saturated fats got a bad reputation for 2 reasons:

1. Cholesterol was almost always found with natural saturated fats, so when they were trying to get people to reduce cholesterol, the easiest rule of thumb to follow was to avoid natural saturated fats.
   
   
2. When the early saturated fat studies were done, they used man made saturated fats (partially hydrogenated vegetable oils), which are full of TRANS FATS, in the studies. Trans fats do cause heart problems, but it wasn't recognized until the 1990s. So natural saturated fats were getting lumped in with trans fats for causing heart disease.
   
   The old timer doctor who wrote that coconut oil bashing article is still stuck in the past. He has failed to take into account the research that shows it was trans fats--not natural saturated fats--that were the culprit in the saturated fat trials.
   
   Mary Enig was the researcher who discovered the link between trans fats and heart disease. If you want to know about what fats are good and bad for you, I suggest her book on fats: "Know your Fats".
   
   https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0967812607/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i2

i'm just curious, how did you come upon this way of eating and living? sounds like it's working great, but it wasn't a book or website that drew you in.

anyway, it won't be hard to find evidence for the bad effects of sugar, and the good effects of vegetables. to understand fats, particularly saturated fats, i think the best resource is mary enig's 'know your fats.' a collection of her articles can be found here. somebody else may reply with some of the good blog posts out there - there are many!

• Know Your Fats : The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils and Cholesterol ~ Mary G. Enig
  
  A good primer article:
  
  
• There is No Such Thing as a Macronutrient Part I – Fats ~ Kurt G Harris MD

What you want is this book.

So the knock against red meat is usually about saturated fat. If you have another concern about red meat other than that, please post so we can find you the relevant research. The point is, that red meat is not just a big ball of saturated fat, its mostly mono-unsaturated.

Here is a link from a university in Australia with a Red Meat breakdown:
http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=hbspapers

There was a link posted already re: saturated fat. If you want to dig down more, this is a good starting point, filled with references for you to follow:
http://www.amazon.com/Know-Your-Fats-Understanding-Cholesterol/dp/0967812607

If its cholesterol you are worried about, this is a good place to start:
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/01/does-dietary-saturated-fat-increase.html

Lastly, there is a large amount of anecdotal clinical experience where people's HDL\LDL and especially Triglycerides improve on this higher-red-meat diet.

TL:DR: Red meat has plenty of "good fat" besides saturated fat, and saturated fat is actually good for you anyway.