It must be understood that cardiovascular death rates and the incidence of cardiovascular disease are two completely different things.

The incidence of cardiovascular disease tells us whether proposed treatments, such as reducing saturated fat intake or taking cholesterol-lowering statin medications, are actually having an effect on heart disease.

This figure includes the total number of people who suffer a heart attack — those who survived as well as those who died.

The death rate from heart disease is entirely different. A reduction in this number merely indicates that more people are surviving a heart attack if they have one.

There are many reasons why survival has improved: faster response times by emergency medical services; better resuscitation techniques on the scene and by doctors in the emergency room; and improvements in emergency drugs and equipment.

In addition, public health campaigns alerting people to the symptoms of a heart attack — that is, increased awareness — have also helped reduce cardiac deaths.

But none of these measures have anything to do with the incidence of heart attacks and strokes — which appear to be increasing progressively.

Younger people may not be aware of the fact that in the 1960s most hospitals did not have staffed emergency rooms, much less special cardiac resuscitation units on site.

The change came as a result of a concerted effort on the part of hospitals to reduce the high number of people dying from a heart attack before they could get medical assistance.

Once those facilities were in place, deaths from heart attacks fell significantly. But it had nothing to do with the incidence of cardiovascular disease, much less changes in diet or the use of cholesterol-lowering drugs.

Most people in the healthcare establishment agree that a person’s diet has little to do with cholesterol blood levels — at least for the majority. For instance, eating eggs will not appreciably raise your cholesterol.

You’d think that all of this information would have ended the incessant warnings by health organizations for all Americans to lower their intake of animal fats (saturated fats).

Yet if you visit the websites of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American Heart Association, or any other mainstream medical organization, you will still see that they call for people to reduce their intake of saturated fats.

When a theory captures the minds of elite medical or science communities, any anomalies that present problems with that theory tend to be downplayed or even ignored.

It appears that the data don’t matter to these “evidence-based medicine” experts.