Malcolm Kendrick



I don't happen to think that saturated fats are in any way damaging or dangerous. If they were, they wouldn't taste so damn delicious. Nature tends to warn us off dangerous foods by making them taste bitter and icky.

A high fat diet reduces VLDL, raises HDL and may even lower LDL. And a high carbohydrate diet does the exact opposite. In short, the metabolism does exactly what you would expect it to. So you see. Atkins was right all along.

Malcolm Kendrick is a General Practitioner (GP), conspiracy theorist author, cholesterol denialist and low-carb diet advocate who has spent decades promoting the Atkins diet and more recently the carnivore diet. He is best known for his unsupported claim that (LDL) and total blood cholesterol levels do not increase the risk of heart disease.

Kendrick dislikes the medical community and argues against the use of statins. Kendrick is associated with the pseudoscientific Institute for Natural Healing and writes articles for the RT network. He is a leading figure in the cholesterol denialist movement. In 2022, Kendrick appeared on carnivore diet podcasts hosted by Shawn Baker and Paul Saladino.

Biography
Kendrick is a GP based in Macclesfield, Cheshire. He is a member of THINCS (The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics), a fringe think tank that disputes the role of cholesterol in cardiovascular disease. He is the author of The Great Cholesterol Con.

Kendrick has a few peer-reviewed papers published. In 2016, Kendrick and other colleagues published a systematic review to examine how low-density lipoprotein cholesterol is associated with mortality in older adults. They concluded that "High LDL-C is inversely associated with mortality in most people over 60 years" and since "elderly people with high LDL-C live as long or longer than those with low LDL-C, our analysis provides reason to question the validity of the cholesterol hypothesis." The review was criticized for cherry picking data and confirmation bias. Nine of the authors are members of THINCS. The National Health Service website observes that "the review searched only a single literature database, excluded studies only available in non-English languages, and excluded studies where the title and abstract did not appear to contain information on the link between LDL and mortality in older adults." Medical experts rejected the review's suggestions. Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation, commented that "there is nothing in the current paper to support the authors' suggestions that the studies they reviewed cast doubt on the idea that LDL cholesterol is a major cause of heart disease or that guidelines on LDL reduction in the elderly need re-evaluating."

Kendrick sits on the Medical Advisory Board for the Institute for Natural Healing (INH), a pseudoscientific cancer woo organization. The website advertises unproven cancer cures and promotes dubious vitamin and mineral supplements. According to the INH "Natural treatments—even cures—for cancer are all around us. They’re readily available to those who know about them. But they’re actively hidden by Big Pharma, the FDA, and mainstream medicine."

Kendrick endorses a low-carb, high-fat diet (LCHF). He has defended the Atkins diet. In June 2022, Kendrick was diagnosed with prostate cancer and had radiotherapy.

Far-out claims
Medical scientists (an oxymoron if ever there was one), have a long and distinguished history of grabbing entirely the wrong end of the stick, closing their eyes tightly shut, holding on grimly and refusing to listen to anybody else.

According to Kendrick:


 * A high-fat diet has no impact on blood cholesterol levels.
 * High cholesterol levels do not cause or increase the risk of heart disease.
 * Statins do not protect against heart disease by lowing cholesterol levels.
 * The protection provided by statins is so small it is not worth bothering with.
 * Statins have many negative side effects including death and creation of deformed babies.
 * All medical experts should be ignored as they are paid large sums of money from statin manufacturers.
 * The only expert that should be listened to is Malcolm Kendrick.

In The Great Cholesterol Con (2008), he argues the above claims but fails to back this up with reliable scientific evidence. It has an irresponsible chapter titled "Eat whatever you like (Diet has nothing to do with heart disease)". Kendrick is not a dietician and lacks education in nutrition. The book makes the following arrogant statement in regard to the above claims:

So the entire medical community is wrong and Kendrick is right.🇱🇮

Kendrick continues his crusade against medical scientists in his book A Statin Nation: Damaging Millions in a Brave New Post-Health World (2018). Contrary to what Kendrick has written, clinical and genetic studies have revealed that high blood cholesterol levels increase the risk of heart disease. Harriet Hall has written that Kendrick and others from THINCS "cherry-pick the scientific literature to find studies that support their theses, ignore the flaws in those studies, and ignore the vast body of literature that contradicts them."

In September 2022, Kendrick stated:

Conspiracy theories
Kendrick's personal blog and books are filled with Big Pharma and government conspiracy theories. He also thinks a group of vegan activists deleted his Wikipedia article and are targeting other high-fat advocates.

He claims anyone that promotes a high fat low carbohydrate diet is somehow "silenced" around the world.

Kendrick has found a home as a contributor to the English language website of the Russian RT television network, which is not a great surprise.

Views on COVID-19
Kendrick dislikes the UK lockdown for the 2019-20 COVID-19 outbreak and has argued it will cause significantly more deaths.

Lawsuit
In February 2020, Kendrick and Zoë Harcombe filed a lawsuit against Associated Newspapers Limited (the owner of Daily Mail) and Barney Calman the Mail on Sunday Health Editor for defamation. Calman had authored an article criticizing the statin denialism of Harcombe and Kendrick as "deadly propaganda". In April 2022, Harcombe and Kendrick's trials were split. As of December 2022 Kendrick's lawsuit is ongoing.

Selected publications

 * The Great Cholesterol Con: The Truth About What Really Causes Heart Disease and How to Avoid It (2008)
 * Doctoring Data: How to Sort Out Medical Advice from Medical Nonsense (2015)
 * A Statin Nation - Damaging Millions in a Brave New Post-Health World (2018)