Top Five Science Claims We’re Not Supposed to Question

4. Cholesterol

If you’re interested in learning more about the cholesterol myth and how it became intertwined with public policy, I recommend a documentary called Fathead. The filmmaker, Tom Naughton, produced the documentary as a response to the wildly popular Morgan Spurlock documentary, Supersize Me, which served as a full-metal-jacket indictment of the fast food industry and its harmful effect on our collective health. Cholesterol is the boogey man of modern medicine. The lipid hypothesis is widely accepted among medical researchers and physicians, but it’s based on the bad science of selective data selection and unfounded conclusions. Despite the fact that recent, more rigorous studies contradict the lipid hypothesis, the Centers for Disease Control doesn’t think that 13 million Americans taking statins to lower their cholesterol is enough; the government agency thinks it should be twice that.