Why are people so misinformed about cholesterol when so much has been published about it? After all, cholesterol has become a household name.

It’s hard to go to a social gathering without someone mentioning this fatty substance and his own cholesterol level. But as one wise sage remarked, "It’s not the things you don’t know that get you into trouble. It’s the things you know for sure that ain’t so." So, what ain’t so about cholesterol?

It ain’t so, for instance, that the only cause of coronary artery disease is cholesterol. Life is not that simple, and it’s totally unrealistic to believe that one risk factor sends so many people to the great beyond. Rather, Matthew’s Law is the culprit. It states that "It’s the sum total of several factors such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, lack of exercise, smoking, advancing age, and inadequate fiber in the diet that ends so many lives."

It ain’t so that cholesterol is the devil it’s made out to be. How many know that cholesterol is a necessary part of every cell in the body? Cholesterol is required for the absorption of fats and digestive juices, and there would be no loving without cholesterol, as it is needed to produce sex hormones! We would all die without cholesterol. And how many are aware that some studies show cholesterol-lowering drugs (CLDs) increase the risk of violent death, suicide, short-term memory loss, and some cancers.

It ain’t so that cholesterol numbers determine whether or not you will have a heart attack. Cholesterol levels of men living in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Stockholm, Sweden, are identical. But the coronary death rate is three times greater in Scots. Maybe they don’t eat as many veggies. Or they drink too much of their own Scotch!

Similarly, ethnic Japanese living in Japan and California have comparable blood cholesterol levels, but those in California have more coronary disease. Is this because of a change in diet or stress on their highways? No one really knows the answers to these questions.

It ain’t so that low levels of blood cholesterol prevent atherosclerosis and heart attack. One of the world’s most famous heart surgeons, a Texan, reported years ago that 30 percent of patients who had a coronary bypass operation had normal blood cholesterol levels.

It ain’t so that the only way our bodies obtain cholesterol is by the food we eat. Most patients are amazed to hear the liver produces 80 to 90 percent of the cholesterol in our bodies. You can’t change the spots on a leopard, and it’s hard to change the genetically controlled metabolism of the liver. Dietary changes help, but it requires a drastic change in food consumption to significantly reduce blood cholesterol.

It ain’t so that the more cholesterol we eat, the more cholesterol is in the blood. The liver’s production of cholesterol is controlled much like the thermostat controls the temperature of our homes. Studies show that the more cholesterol consumed, the less the liver produces. Conversely, if the diet is low in cholesterol, the reverse is true, and the liver manufactures more cholesterol.

Here’s a big "ain’t so." It’s not simply medical science that convinces people to take cholesterol-lowering and other drugs. I often write this column on Lake Canandaigua in upstate New York, so I keep my eye on U.S. health matters. It was recently reported by Excellus Blue Cross Blue Shield that, in 2007, in upstate N.Y. alone, $241,530,000 was spent on just one cholesterol drug: Lipitor!

Another $103,580,000 was spent on Prevacid to ease stomach problems, and $74,360,000 on Effexor for depression. The point is, "Thars money in them thar drugs." I find it hard to believe that in one small corner of the United States so many people are suffering from high cholesterol levels, stomach, and nervousness.

We have more than a sick economy these days. We have a population that’s been programmed to illness, a population that now believes that the road to health is paved with pills, pills, and more pills. And it means we have a terribly ill society that keeps pharmaceutical companies flourishing.

Luckily it's raining so I can get the Brownie story out of the way first off and I never want to tell it again.

Roni had brought this old decrepit horse named Brownie up to the mountain with her. Brownie was the horse of her youth and I think must have been about 29 maybe more at the time. Roni has always worked for large animal vets, ridden horses, and been as we say, an animal lover. I am more selective. I like some animals not necessarily horses, who are large and can bite and kick and trample you senseless. Brownie had a pretty good sized wart on his penis. There is just no other way to give you that information. And it is the central part of the story. Roni was subbing I think as a vet tech for a woman vet in the area for a while, I'm not sure she got paid but she did get free or discounted vet services. So she told the vet about the wart on Brownies penis thinking the vet would come up to her place and cauterize it or something. I wish I could tell you that the wart on Brownies penis caused him great discomfort or might shorten his life span in some way to justify what we did to him, but as I remember it was more of an eyesore or disfigurement, I'm not sure which. It isn't too important what Brownie thought as Roni had decided the wart had to go. She tells me that the vet said if we put an elastrator band on the wart it would probably fall off all on it's own. I owned an elastrator. It's an evil looking heavy instrument about the size of a huge pair of pliers that you outfit with a small but thick rubberband like thing. You open the elastrator pinchers and slide the rubber band over a lambs testicles or tail and slip the band off the elastrator and painlessly ( as it numbs the area) the testicules fall off in about three weeks. No reason why it shouldn't work on brownies wart. Just cut off the blood supply and the wart should fall off in due time. Okay

I told Roni from the get go that I was not a horse person and that although I would supply the elastrator and band I was not tying the bell on the cats collar so to speak. Oh I understand she says I know how you are so I have invited Crystal to come up and do that part. Now this did not reassure me in any way. Crystal was young and strong and nimble but she really was certifiably crazy. Schizophrenia. Heard voices, thought the trees were after her, and just generally what you would call under the best of circumstances plain nuts. But she had a good heart and since she couldn't hold a job she was always free to be of some use to us and pretty much would do what you asked of her. Sometimes anyway.

You can keep in mind that we lived way out at the end of no where in the woods on a very high steep mountain. Not your scenic mountain with tall trees and wooded paths but a psycho killer of a mountain with steep drop off ravines, brush 15 feet high and thick and loaded with rattlesnakes, mountain lions, bears, meth labs, booby traps and armed druggies. Not too many people with or without reason came out there. So one cold foggy day Roni, Crystal and I meet down at Roni's place to dewart Brownie. It's awfully muddy in the corral Roni says, why don't I bring Brownie up here on the driveway? Good plan I think. So up from the woods she comes with this huge brown horse on a rope. Seemed like he was 20 hands high, muscled like a stallion, legs like guns on a tank, but I am having no part of this so what do I care? Roni is to hold the horse, Crystal is to handle the elastrator. I'm just there to observe. Well geldings don't go around with their genitals hanging all down around their ankles like men so I end up holding the horse while Roni entices the wart and penis out where Crystal can get at it. Since Roni has had babies at home on the couch, standing by the side of the road at the end of the driveway doing something weird to a horse didn't seem out of the ordinary. Crystal was just crouched under Brownie totally concentrating on her job with the elastrator. I was just concerned that Brownie was going to rear up and flatten me. Although he wasn't doing anything mean, in fact seemed to be rather enjoying the attention, I just closed my eyes and hung on his rope. I heard Roni say, there it is, and Crystal said hold him still, and then the proverbial; oh shit! And I opened my eyes to see Crystal and Roni reaching up into Brownies flanks as the elastrator swung wildly from the wart on his penis. Brownie didn't like that at all! He bucked and kicked and tried to take off down the road with the three of us holding onto him and his penis for dear life. We're wailing and cursing, the elastrator still dangling up under him some where. It was quite a rodeo, dirt, mud, rocks, weeds being torn up. Finally Roni got the elastrator off and we are laying in a pile of legs and arms and bruises under this horse when we hear laughter and horns blowing like you wouldn't believe. There, heads peering out of open car windows, is the mail man followed by a line of other dumbfounded onlookers who had snuck up on us wondering what in the world three women we were doing to that poor old horse.