Issue #58: Diet-Heart Hypothesis

“Doctors always think anybody doing something they aren’t is a quack; also they think all patients are idiots.” — Flannery O’Connor

In grad school in the ’70s, I sold blood for thrombosis research to make some needed cash. The lab tech pointed to the cloudy layer of fat on the top of my plasma. Of course, I was faithfully following the recommended low-fat diet. My breakfast was often toaster pancakes topped with margarine and high-fructose corn syrup. Why was my plasma so cloudy? I was trim back then but perhaps I was TOFI (thin outside fat inside). It turns out, that…