Dr Amir Khan

So it might not be that it's making lots of cholesterol as a result of all that pressure, but what it can mean is it's not getting rid of the excess fats like it should do.

So over time, it can affect your fat profile in your blood as well.

Yes.

But do you not think it could have been because of his genetics rather than his diet?

No.

No?

I think that is such an important message because I see people who feel like they're healthy because they are slim and they come to see me after they've had a heart attack or a stroke or they've got high blood pressure.

And it's because they're not thinking about what they're putting into their body because they look OK on the outside.

And on the converse of that is people who might be high on the BMI scale, but actually very healthy on the inside.

It's not appearance.

Yeah, this was wrong, actually.

So during the 50s all the way to the 70s, really, cholesterol and heart disease and stroke were all kind of associated together.

And it was based on a number of studies at the time, the big one being one called the Seven Countries Studies.

And essentially, it linked high cholesterol to heart disease.

But in hindsight now, it was a really poorly designed study because it was what we called an observational study.

So it didn't narrow it down to just cholesterol.

And it didn't look at other things these people were doing around exercise or lack of exercise or how much sugar or anything they were taking in.

They just focused in on cholesterol, saying, oh, well, it must have been that and nothing else that was being done.

It was a really poorly designed study.

So as a result, we were told...