After the Korean War ended in 1953, the world's doctors were taken aback by the results of the autopsies performed on America's fallen troops. More often than not, the young soldiers' hearts were riddled with fat deposits in the same places that plaques were found in middle-aged patients with cardiovascular disease. Pressed to find an explanation, scientists dusted off a decades-old theory put forth by a Russian scientist that suggested cholesterol was at fault for vascular damage in rabbits. Thus the cholesterol scare was born, and to this day Western doctors continue to recommend anti-cholesterol medication to an increasing number of adult patients as a matter of course.
This case, like so many before and after it, is a testament to governments' repeated failures to get results in offering their citizens dietary guidance. Since U.S. physiologist Ancel Keys began the famous (and to some, infamous) Seven Countries Study in 1956 linking...
