Everything about Uffe Ravnskov totally explained
Uffe Ravnskov (born
1934) is a
Danish independent researcher, a member of various international scientific organisations, and a former private medical practitioner in
Sweden. In recent years he's gained international recognition for his research into numerous scientific studies, leading to the publication of a book which stated that the widely popularised
Lipid Hypothesis is scientifically invalid.
Early career
He was born in
Copenhagen,
Denmark, and received his medical doctorate from the
University of Copenhagen in
1961. Over the following seven years, he worked at various
surgical,
roentgenological,
neurological,
paediatric and medical departments in Denmark and Sweden. He then began scientific studies at the Departments of
Nephrology and
Clinical Chemistry at the
Lund University Hospital in
Lund, Sweden. He was awarded his doctorate of philosophy (specialising in internal medicine and nephrology) there in
1973, and was
assistant professor at the university's Department of Nephrology from
1975 to
1979.
An encounter with scientific fraud committed by a colleague ended up changing Dr Ravnskov's career:
Dr Ravnskov entered private medical practice as a specialist in internal medicine and nephrology in 1979, and worked in Lund in this capacity and as a family doctor until retiring in
2000. Since 1979 he's worked as an independent scientific researcher and since 2000 continues to do so on a full-time basis.
In his 1973 PhD. thesis,
On Renal Handling of Serum Proteins, Dr Ravnskov introduced the
albumin/
creatinine clearance ratio, a more accurate way to measure
proteinuria. He was also the first to describe the peritubular uptake of low-molecular-weight proteins.
He also proposed a
theory that
glomerulonephritis is primarily a tubulointerstitial disease, supported by his earlier findings that most patients with glomerulonephritis excrete large amounts of tubular proteins and tubulospecific enzymes.
In experimental studies he demonstrated that the handling of proteins by the
kidneys differs in man and other mammals, implying that knowledge from animal studies can't be applied to humans.
Dr Ravnskov also conducted work on
urinary tract infections; in one study of urinary tract infections in women he found that the major cause of
dysuria was soap, not bacteria.
His major research interest concerns the association between
hydrocarbon exposure and glomerulonephritis; this interest was sparked by a 1975 paper in
The Lancet by Stephen W. Zimmerman, K. Groehler, and G.J. Beirne, who found that the large majority of their patients with glomerulonephritis on
dialysis treatment had prior heavy exposure to industrial
solvents. In his subsequent work in this area, he was the first to demonstrate that a discontinuation of hydrocarbon exposure may improve the course of glomerulonephritis, a finding confirmed by follow-up studies made by British researchers.
Investigation of the Lipid Hypothesis, or "Diet-Heart" Idea
While not the first scientific researcher to question the validity of the Lipid Hypothesis (which has become increasingly fashionable in corporate, media and certain medical circles in many countries due to the work of doctors such as
Ancel Keys in the
1950s), when this came to be promoted strongly in Sweden Dr Ravnskov felt there was an incongruity between the
Diet-Heart Idea and scientific literature he could recall. In Dr Ravnskov's words,
He began to collect and examine the data from past scientific studies, and discovered sufficient evidence to enable him to assert that the scientific foundations of the Diet-Heart Idea were scientifically flawed, and thus the Lipid Hypothesis had no validity. The amount of conflicting statements he'd assembled on the topic made him realise an entire book was necessary to publicly question all the "inaccuracies, misinterpretations, exaggerations and misleading quotations in this research area." His book
Kolesterolmyten ("The Cholesterol Myths") was subsequently published in Sweden in
1991 and in
Finland in
1992. It received adverse attention from the local media when they consulted the researchers and health authorities that it criticised; in the
2003 edition of the book, Ravnskov recalls how it was belittled in a television programme on
Finland's Channel 2 television station and a copy of the book literally
set on fire. Suppression of the work by media-generated ridicule and hysteria, rather than by scientifically valid refutation proved to be generally effective, and distribution of the book languished.
With the popularisation of the internet in the late
1990s, Dr Ravnskov saw the opportunity to inform the general public of his findings and, in
1997, published selected sections of
The Cholesterol Myths on the
world wide web. According to the search engine
Direct Hit (since acquired by
Ask.com in
1999), Ravnskov's website soon became ranked as one of the top ten most popular websites about cholesterol. As a result of this worldwide interest, his book was translated into
English and published in the
United States as
The Cholesterol Myths: Exposing the Fallacy that Saturated Fat and Cholesterol cause Heart Disease in September
2000 by a publishing house established by the head of
the Weston A. Price Foundation,
Sally Fallon. It was later published in
Germany in
2002 under the title
Mythos Cholesterin. Die zehn größten Irrtümer ("Cholesterol Myth: The Ten Biggest Errors").
Since 1990, Dr Ravnskov has published over 80 scientific papers critical of the Diet-Heart Idea, proposing new hypotheses and also showing that "the successful dissemination of the diet-heart idea is due to authors systematically ignoring or misquoting discordant (contradictory) studies". He was the first to suggest that the positive effect of the
statins may be due to other effects than cholesterol-lowering (a view which Ravnskov notes has gained widespread acceptance). In a meta-analysis of cholesterol-lowering trials published in the
British Medical Journal in
1992, he demonstrated that coronary mortality wasn't lowered by cholesterol lowering, but total mortality was increased.
In
2003 he published a review of the many studies that have shown
low density lipoprotein (LDL) to be protective against infections, and put forward the hypothesis that high cholesterol, rather than promoting
atherosclerosis, in fact may protect against it.
Dr Ravnskov continues to actively investigate scientific communications on cholesterol and heart disease for misinformation, and in the
British Medical Journal in October
2005 refuted statements contained in a July 2005 paper on coronary heart disease in
Poland, printed in the same journal.
In a 2005 interview with a representative from
Health Myths Publishing
, Dr Ravnskov was asked for his viewpoint on what causes heart disease, and remarked
Awards and Organisations
Dr Ravnskov has received the
Skrabanek Award in 1999 from
Trinity College, Dublin,
Ireland, for original contributions in the field of medical scepticism. He was also honoured with the Integrity In Science Award 2003 given by
The Weston A. Price Foundation.
He is a member of the free panel of the Journal of the Swedish Medical Association (the
medical journal Läkartidningen), the
International Science Oversight Board, the
International Society for the Study of Fatty Acids and Lipids, and is the spokesman for THINCS,
The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics.
He resides in Lund, Sweden.
Further Information
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