Darin

@SamaHoole This study is important of course but not dispositive. Being limited to Koreans for example misses all kinds of genetic and cultural difference that might matter. You hate when the other side grinds their ax, let us not do it too.

In 2019, a paper landed in Scientific Reports, a Nature journal, that should have ended a forty-year argument. It didn't. The reasons are instructive. The study followed 12.8 million Korean adults for nearly a decade. 694,423 of them died in the dataset. It is one of the largest cholesterol cohorts ever assembled. It asked, simply, what total cholesterol level is associated with the lowest risk of death. The doctrine the study walked into is one almost everyone reading this has heard from their doctor. Lower is better. Get the number under 200. If you cannot get it there with diet, get it there with a statin. This advice underpins one of the most-prescribed drug classes on the planet. The data found a U-shaped curve. Above 200 mg/dL, mortality rose as cholesterol rose. Below 200 mg/dL, mortality rose as cholesterol fell. The bottom of the curve, the cholesterol level at which Koreans were least likely to die, sat at 210 to 249 mg/dL, which is to say, in the range your doctor currently calls "borderline high" and recommends treating. The age-dependent finding is what should make a clinician sweat. In adults aged 65 to 74, each 1 mmol/L higher cholesterol below 200 mg/dL was associated with 20% lower all-cause mortality. In adults 75 to 99, 13% lower. Among the people most likely to be prescribed a statin and chased toward a low number, the data found that the people with higher cholesterol were the ones still alive at follow-up. This is not a fringe blog. It is the largest cohort of its kind ever published, in a Nature journal, on PubMed since 2019. A 2016 systematic review in BMJ Open, by Ravnskov and colleagues, pooled 19 cohort studies covering 68,094 elderly people on the same question. In 92% of the participants in those cohorts, the people with the highest LDL cholesterol lived the longest. The advice your doctor gives an elderly relative is, in most of the world, to drive the cholesterol down. The two largest pieces of evidence on what actually happens to elderly people at different cholesterol levels say the opposite. These are not arguments. They are observational findings, repeated, in independent populations, by independent researchers, in mainstream peer-reviewed journals. None of it is on the leaflet at the pharmacy. The leaflet was written before the data arrived, and nobody has been particularly keen to rewrite it.

@grok @StoicVirtues @SamaHoole Grill at least has the self awareness to say “dunno.”

The Yi 2019 Scientific Reports study (12.8M Koreans) is real and shows a U-shaped curve for total cholesterol & all-cause mortality: lowest risk at ~210-249 mg/dL. Below 200, higher TC linked to lower mortality (e.g. ~20% lower per mmol/L in ages 65-74). Ravnskov 2016 review found similar inverse LDL-mortality patterns in most elderly cohorts. These are valid observational associations, but limited by reverse causation (illness/frailty lowers cholesterol) and lack of LDL/HDL or cause-specific data. Statin RCTs cut CV events; guidelines focus on individualized CVD risk, not blanket "lower is always better" for longevity. Context and personal health matter—consult a doctor.

@drterrysimpson Yes. But serious professions pay a price for being wrong. The concern here is that academia is indulging its DEI fantasies at the expense of identifying the best. It can’t be trusted.

What fascinates me is how quickly these discussions become theological. You assume test scores are the fairest measure of merit, define merit by those scores, and then conclude anyone selected using other criteria is less meritorious. That is circular reasoning. Every serious profession evaluates more than test scores because important human qualities are not fully captured by exams. If medicine believed MCAT scores were sufficient, admissions committees, interviews, recommendations, and clinical evaluations would not exist. Yet the strongest believers in standardized tests are often the people who have never had to select, train, or supervise physicians. And lurking beneath much of this argument is an obvious piece of race baiting: the insinuation that any deviation from a test-score hierarchy must mean standards were lowered for certain racial groups. Rather than engaging with the actual evidence about what makes a competent physician, the discussion is redirected toward resentment and suspicion. It is a familiar rhetorical trick—invite people to treat demographic outcomes as proof of unfairness, then present prejudice as concern for merit.

@tylerblack32 Some of these are better points than others

Twitter in 2026 is a cesspool of misinformation. The following all are untrue, not supported by the current evidence evidence, and counter to good health information. Any claim to the below is using weaker evidence than the opposite claim. ❌Vaccines harmful and ineffective ❌Sunscreen cause cancer ❌LDL is good, not bad ❌Keto is better than other diets ❌Seed oils poison you ❌Statins are a pharma scam ❌Fluoride lowers IQ ❌Raw milk is a superfood ❌SSRIs are more addictive than heroin ❌Cholesterol doesn't cause heart disease ❌GLP-1s are ruining people ❌Sunlight is good for your eyes ❌continuous glucose monitor even if you don't have diabetes ❌Vaccines cause autism ❌Tylenol causes autism ❌Carnivore diet cures everything ❌Mitochondria/metabolics are the answer to every chronic health problem ❌Vagus nerve therapy helps everything ❌SSRIs are more addictive than heroin

@206Hoops Lame.

So nice of Brandi Kruse to take time away from picking on trans kids so she can churn out anti-millionaire's tax propaganda in exchange for bribes from the ultra-wealthy. Gotta brainwash those followers to defend the greed of the top 0.5% earners!. Bigot Brandi is trash.

@drterrysimpson That’s not a good argument. Come on.

Isn’t it odd - many who are claiming that the UC system is horrific and how science and math are great deny climate change, are anti-vax types, and yet they want more science. Well, I would submit, they should have taken more science, and had they taken some they might not have such wrong-headed thinking. Then again, they didn’t get admitted to the U Cal system and drag the average down.

@concernedmuffin @lukeappleton We all have to live with non parents’ opinions about parenting, we can have an opinion about THAT. Yay liberty

@lukeappleton We have to live with the effects of people’s parenting so yeah, we can have an opinion.

People who dont have kids are ALLOWED to have opinions about parenting.

@HeidiBriones @lukeappleton Lol sure.

@lukeappleton Sometimes we give better advice because we're not emotionally invested and completely exhausted.

@annhafter @JoeBobRayBob @TheFP You’re just got through saying you were surprised by them.

@JoeBobRayBob @TheFP I had more babies in my thirties than you did Jim. But honestly, every women knows that fertility peaks in your early 20's. Then takes a nose dive in your late 30's. 35 really is a gamechanger. No women over the age of 25 is surprised by those numbers.

I’m an IVF Doctor. Business Is Booming Because Ob-Gyns Aren’t Doing Their Jobs. Just last Monday, a woman sat across from me in my office and asked a question I have come to dread. Why had no one told her? She is 33, a therapist, married three years, and she has been to her gynecologist every year since high school. She was also on the brink of perimenopause. She had assumed that when she was ready, her body would be too. No one in two decades of annual visits had ever explained that the most consequential decisions about her capacity to bear children were being made by her ovaries on a calendar she could not see, while her doctor took her blood pressure and refilled her birth control. She is the patient I see several times a month. She is the most preventable tragedy in American medicine. thefp.com/p/im-an-ivf-do…

@SeattleCigars They were already good at football. Just like they were in American Samoa. Coaching matters. Just not for making div 1 players.

@darin4really Those Samoan Mormons played high level college & NFL NOW they’re giving back. Coaching absolutely matters.

Washington state high school football talent is pretty poor. Not because of the players, but the lack of coaching. Utah used to to suck for CFB talent, not anymore. Lots of league guys coming back to invest in the next generation. DMV got real ball players. Every team has like 4-5 D1 guys. Same for Dallas corridor. Throw a rock either way and you hit a D1 guy. 4 stars in Washington generally get smoked by 3 stars from these other areas.

@drterrysimpson Right. Those things are part of the shared environment. Which does not correlate with IQ. Which does correlate strongly with the SAT. My starting hypothesis is that those things are not causal of high SAT scores. Is there data showing otherwise?

That’s a remarkable claim. Who takes the SAT twice instead of once? Who has parents who know what the SAT is when their child is 12? Who attends schools where college admissions are discussed routinely? Who has access to AP Calculus, advanced writing courses, and peers headed to selective universities? Who has a quiet place to study, reliable internet, transportation to test sites, and the expectation that college is the next step? Those are all shared environmental factors. The SAT may be less susceptible to grade inflation than GPA, but it is hardly immune to family resources, school quality, or educational culture.

I agree that SAT supporters generally don't see it as the sole measure of merit. I also agree it provides useful information. Where we disagree is the assumption that equal access to test-prep materials creates equal opportunity. The largest educational advantages have never been a prep book. They are family resources, school quality, academic culture, mentorship, stability, and opportunity. As for the faculty concerns, mathematicians are entirely justified in worrying about mathematical preparation. But universities exist to educate citizens, scientists, physicians, engineers, artists, and leaders—not simply to maximize incoming test scores. Those goals overlap, but they are not identical.

@DanteJeffe14617 @FischerKing64 That’s exactly backwards.

@FischerKing64 Again, Griggs is a good ruling. Conservatives. Conservatives are definitionally not good faith actors. They are not governed by principle, but by outcome. The goal is to disenfranchise disfavored minorities. They will support any law that does that. They have been caught a ton.

He’s not going to respond to my thread on Duke Power prior to the 1970 ruling because this was the most cut and dry case ever. He’s depending on you not knowing the facts. x.com/DanteJeffe1461…

@drterrysimpson Me too. That’s a nasty ailment.

@darin4really I’d rather have a booster than ever take the chance.

That is a great question, and I might not have the right interpretation of what you ask but it is a great story how vaccination has been a success story that people forget. Before vaccination became widespread in the United States, tetanus caused hundreds of deaths annually. Today, cases are rare precisely because people are vaccinated. Among people who develop tetanus: About 10–20% die even with modern medical care. Severe cases often require weeks in an ICU, mechanical ventilation, and prolonged rehabilitation. The risk-benefit comparison For every million tetanus shots: Hundreds of thousands of people will have a sore arm. Tens of thousands may have a headache or feel tired for a day. About one may experience a severe allergic reaction and is typically treated successfully. For every person who develops tetanus: Nearly all will experience painful muscle spasms. Many require intensive care. Roughly 1 in 10 to 1 in 5 will die.

@drterrysimpson Anyway, your claim is testable. Is the SAT less predictive of success for rich kids? I’ve never heard that.

@drterrysimpson It correlates .8 with IQ. It’s a pretty good test. You’d think those things would help, but they don’t much. Once you control for heredity.

@Jeffreyhbaird @drterrysimpson Yep. And “other”

@darin4really @drterrysimpson The more adjectives they add (likable, resilient, leadership, empathy...) the more they can use race.

Nobody said all doctors have equivalent intelligence. The question is whether admissions committees are trying to identify the highest IQ applicant or the best future physician. Those are not the same thing. Medical schools already select from an extraordinarily intelligent pool of applicants. Once you get above the threshold necessary to master the science, other qualities begin to matter enormously: judgment, discipline, communication, resilience, curiosity, ethics, leadership, and the ability to earn a patient's trust. I've trained and worked with physicians for decades. The smartest person in the room is not always the best doctor in the room.

@EdWhelanEPPC Scalia was great

25 years ago today, Justice Scalia delivered his classic "What Is Golf" dissent in PGA Tour v. Martin: “If one assumes … that the PGA TOUR has some legal obligation to play classic, Platonic golf … then we Justices must confront what is indeed an awesome responsibility. It has been rendered the solemn duty of the Supreme Court of the United States … to decide What Is Golf. I am sure that the Framers of the Constitution, aware of the 1457 edict of King James II of Scotland prohibiting golf because it interfered with the practice of archery, fully expected that sooner or later the paths of golf and government, the law and the links, would once again cross, and that the judges of this august Court would some day have to wrestle with that age-old jurisprudential question, for which their years of study in the law have so well prepared them: Is someone riding around a golf course from shot to shot really a golfer? The answer, we learn, is yes. The Court ultimately concludes, and it will henceforth be the Law of the Land, that walking is not a ‘fundamental’ aspect of golf. Either out of humility or out of self-respect (one or the other) the Court should decline to answer this incredibly difficult and incredibly silly question.”