Uffe Ravnskov
Encyclopedia
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
independent researcher, a member of various international scientific organisations, and a former private medical practitioner in Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
. In recent years he has 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
Lipid hypothesis
The lipid hypothesis was one of two hypotheses developed in the 1850s to explain the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis...
is scientifically invalid.
Early career
He was born in CopenhagenCopenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, and received his medical doctorate from the University of Copenhagen
University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Denmark. Founded in 1479, it has more than 37,000 students, the majority of whom are female , and more than 7,000 employees. The university has several campuses located in and around Copenhagen, with the...
in 1961. Over the following seven years, he worked at various surgical
Surgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
, roentgenological
Röntgen
The roentgen is a unit of measurement for exposure to ionizing radiation , and is named after the German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen...
, neurological
Neurology
Neurology is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the nervous system. Specifically, it deals with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of disease involving the central, peripheral, and autonomic nervous systems, including their coverings, blood vessels, and all effector tissue,...
, paediatric
Pediatrics
Pediatrics or paediatrics is the branch of medicine that deals with the medical care of infants, children, and adolescents. A medical practitioner who specializes in this area is known as a pediatrician or paediatrician...
and medical departments in Denmark and Sweden. He then began scientific studies at the Departments of Nephrology
Nephrology
Nephrology is a branch of internal medicine and pediatrics dealing with the study of the function and diseases of the kidney.-Scope of the specialty:...
and Clinical Chemistry at the Lund University Hospital
Lund University
Lund University , located in the city of Lund in the province of Scania, Sweden, is one of northern Europe's most prestigious universities and one of Scandinavia's largest institutions for education and research, frequently ranked among the world's top 100 universities...
in Lund
Lund
-Main sights:During the 12th and 13th centuries, when the town was the seat of the archbishop, many churches and monasteries were built. At its peak, Lund had 27 churches, but most of them were demolished as result of the Reformation in 1536. Several medieval buildings remain, including Lund...
, Sweden. He was awarded his doctorate of philosophy (specialising in internal medicine and nephrology) there in 1973, and was assistant professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
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 has worked as an independent scientific researcher and since 2000 continues to do so on a full-time basis.
Research in Nephrology
In his 1973 PhD. thesis, On Renal Handling of Serum Proteins, Dr Ravnskov introduced the albuminSerum albumin
Serum albumin, often referred to simply as albumin is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ALB gene.Serum albumin is the most abundant plasma protein in mammals. Albumin is essential for maintaining the osmotic pressure needed for proper distribution of body fluids between intravascular...
/creatinine clearance ratio, a more accurate way to measure proteinuria
Proteinuria
Proteinuria means the presence of anexcess of serum proteins in the urine. The protein in the urine often causes the urine to become foamy, although foamy urine may also be caused by bilirubin in the urine , retrograde ejaculation, pneumaturia due to a fistula, or drugs such as pyridium.- Causes...
. He was also the first to describe the peritubular uptake of low-molecular-weight proteins.
He also proposed a theory
Theory
The English word theory was derived from a technical term in Ancient Greek philosophy. The word theoria, , meant "a looking at, viewing, beholding", and referring to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action...
that glomerulonephritis
Glomerulonephritis
Glomerulonephritis, also known as glomerular nephritis, abbreviated GN, is a renal disease characterized by inflammation of the glomeruli, or small blood vessels in the kidneys...
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 kidney
Kidney
The kidneys, organs with several functions, serve essential regulatory roles in most animals, including vertebrates and some invertebrates. They are essential in the urinary system and also serve homeostatic functions such as the regulation of electrolytes, maintenance of acid–base balance, and...
s differs in man and other mammals, implying that knowledge from animal studies cannot be applied to humans.
Dr Ravnskov also conducted work on urinary tract
Urinary system
The urinary system is the organ system that produces, stores, and eliminates urine. In humans it includes two kidneys, two ureters, the bladder and the urethra.-Kidney:...
infections; in one study of urinary tract infections in women he found that the major cause of dysuria
Dysuria
In medicine, specifically urology, dysuria refers to painful urination.Difficult urination is also sometimes described as dysuria.It is one of a constellation of irritative bladder symptoms, which includes urinary frequency and haematuria....
was soap, not bacteria.
His major research interest concerns the association between hydrocarbon
Hydrocarbon
In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons from which one hydrogen atom has been removed are functional groups, called hydrocarbyls....
exposure and glomerulonephritis; this interest was sparked by a 1975 paper in The Lancet
The Lancet
The Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal. It is one of the world's best known, oldest, and most respected general medical journals...
by Stephen W. Zimmerman, K. Groehler, and G.J. Beirne, who found that the large majority of their patients with glomerulonephritis on dialysis
Dialysis
In medicine, dialysis is a process for removing waste and excess water from the blood, and is primarily used to provide an artificial replacement for lost kidney function in people with renal failure...
treatment had prior heavy exposure to industrial solvent
Solvent
A solvent is a liquid, solid, or gas that dissolves another solid, liquid, or gaseous solute, resulting in a solution that is soluble in a certain volume of solvent at a specified temperature...
s. 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 KeysAncel Keys
Ancel Benjamin Keys was an American scientist who studied the influence of diet on health. In particular, he hypothesized that different kinds of dietary fat had different effects on health....
in the 1950s), when this came to be promoted strongly in Sweden Dr Ravnskov felt there was an incongruity between the Diet-Heart Idea
Lipid hypothesis
The lipid hypothesis was one of two hypotheses developed in the 1850s to explain the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis...
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 had 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
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
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
Yleisradio
The Finnish Broadcasting Company , abbreviated to YLE , is Finland's national broadcasting company, founded in 1926. YLE is a public-broadcasting organization which shares many of its characteristics with its British counterpart, the BBC, on which it was largely modelled...
and a copy of the book literally set on fire
Book burning
Book burning, biblioclasm or libricide is the practice of destroying, often ceremoniously, books or other written material and media. In modern times, other forms of media, such as phonograph records, video tapes, and CDs have also been ceremoniously burned, torched, or shredded...
. 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
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
. According to the search engine Direct Hit (since acquired by Ask.com
Ask.com
Ask is a Q&A focused search engine founded in 1996 by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen in Berkeley, California. The original software was implemented by Gary Chevsky from his own design. Warthen, Chevsky, Justin Grant, and others built the early AskJeeves.com website around that core engine...
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
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and published in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
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
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
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 statin
Statin
Statins are a class of drugs used to lower cholesterol levels by inhibiting the enzyme HMG-CoA reductase, which plays a central role in the production of cholesterol in the liver. Increased cholesterol levels have been associated with cardiovascular diseases, and statins are therefore used in the...
s 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
British Medical Journal
BMJ is a partially open-access peer-reviewed medical journal. Originally called the British Medical Journal, the title was officially shortened to BMJ in 1988. The journal is published by the BMJ Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Medical Association...
in 1992, he demonstrated that coronary mortality was not 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
Low density lipoprotein
Low-density lipoprotein is one of the five major groups of lipoproteins, which in order of size, largest to smallest, are chylomicrons, VLDL, IDL, LDL, and HDL, that enable transport of cholesterol within the water-based bloodstream...
(LDL) to be protective against infections, and put forward the hypothesis that high cholesterol, rather than promoting atherosclerosis
Atherosclerosis
Atherosclerosis is a condition in which an artery wall thickens as a result of the accumulation of fatty materials such as cholesterol...
, 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
British Medical Journal
BMJ is a partially open-access peer-reviewed medical journal. Originally called the British Medical Journal, the title was officially shortened to BMJ in 1988. The journal is published by the BMJ Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Medical Association...
in October 2005 refuted statements contained in a July 2005 paper on coronary heart disease in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, 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 SkrabanekPetr Skrabanek
Petr Skrabanek was a leading doctor and professor of medicine. Author of several books and numerous articles, he was considered a leading scientist...
Award in 1999 from Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, 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
The Weston A. Price Foundation
The Weston A. Price Foundation , co-founded in 1999 by Sally Fallon and nutritionist Mary G. Enig , is a U.S. 501 non-profit organization dedicated to "restoring nutrient-dense foods to the American diet through education, research and activism."The foundation has been criticised by medical...
, an organisation which shares Ravnskov's skepticism about the lipid hypothesis
Lipid hypothesis
The lipid hypothesis was one of two hypotheses developed in the 1850s to explain the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis...
.
He is a member of the free panel of the Journal of the Swedish Medical Association (the medical journal
Medical journal
A public health journal is a scientific journal devoted to the field of public health, including epidemiology, biostatistics, and health care . Public health journals, like most scientific journals, are peer-reviewed...
Läkartidningen
Läkartidningen
Läkartidningen is a Swedish medical journal which was first published in 1965 by the Sveriges Läkarförbund , an organisation founded in 1904.-External links: *...
), 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
The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics
The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics is a group of scientists, physicians, and other academicians from around the world who dispute the widely accepted lipid hypothesis of atherosclerosis...
.
He resides in Lund, Sweden.
External links
- Autobiography and complete bibliography of Dr Ravnskov's scientific papers
- Other biographical details and bibliographies sorted by language
- Glomerulonephritis and Chronic Renal Failure - the Crucial Role of Chemical Exposure (Dr Ravnskov's research on glomerulonephritis)
- The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics
- International Science Oversight Board (Official website)
- International Society for the Study of Fatty Acids and Lipids