Over ten years ago, while I was researching the literature for Vitamin C – The Master Nutrient, I came across the despairing cries of doctors who, having discovered even as far back as the 1930s that heart disease can actually be reversed by vitamin C, were bemoaning the fact that this vital information hadn't been integrated into clinical practice, indeed emergency rooms.

In fact, in my book which was published in 1991, I moaned "...Having surveyed the historical literature concerning heart disease, cholesterol and vitamin C, the author is appalled at this scandalous outrage of reinforced ignorance and misinformation.....even today in 1990, the public is still being barraged by the media about fat and high cholesterol levels. Something has got to change. And that seems to point to a more highly critical and discerning consumer who is willing to question and doubt even their doctors..."

Well here we are 10 years later, and the distinguished Dr Uffe Ravnskov, MD, Ph.D., in The Cholesterol Myths – Exposing the Fallacy that Saturated Fat and Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease is scathingly critical of the scientific and medical edifice of myths which has been created and perpetuated by the medical establishment. Read the review by Stephen Byrnes (see page 7) and then read the book, to follow Dr Ravnskov's withering dissection of the flawed research and even more flawed interpretations of much of the research.

Which makes it even more depressing for me, having pointed out some of the errors which were well known a full ten years ago, is that it is now fifty years since this flawed Lipid Hypothesis was spawned, and it still appears that no one takes any notice.

This apparent sidelining of important research is repeated with tens of thousands of nutritionally oriented research studies which have been published in other fields – cancer, HIV, arthritis – to name several, which seem to be ignored by the medical establishment. Regular readers of Positive Health will recognize this as a familiar theme in these Editorial pages.

As for the remedy, I concur entirely with Dr Ravnskov: "Everyone must gain the truth in an active way. If you want to know something you must look at all the premises yourself, listen to all the arguments yourself, and then decide for yourself what seems to be the most likely answer. You may be easily led astray if you ask the authorities to do this work for you."

On another topic close to my heart, I was listening to a very intellectual discussion on Radio 4 about literature among several journalists. The question was raised by the Presenter regarding whether the participants would turn to literature to help with the pain of bereavement. One of the panellists replied that in her experience she has found many self-help books to be extremely useful in personal crises. The Presenter then intoned, in a most dismissive and scathingly condescending manner "self-help books!", implying that the entire literature of health-related books and publications, including I suppose the tens of thousands of titles relating to Complementary Medicine, is total and utter rubbish, beneath contempt!!

This kind of sentiment, which reflects the Presenter's total ignorance of the wealth of knowledge contained within the vast library of Complementary Medicine, never fails to infuriate me. Anyone wanting to see the incredible results being obtained from techniques probably falling under the banner of 'self-help' need only read articles such as the Cover Story Neuro Linguistic Psychotherapy for Skin Conditions in which Alexandra Chalfont describes the power of the mind to overcome even long-standing and distressing conditions such as allergies, psoriasis and breast infections (see page 16). Or the unusual, highly original and effective Trauma EnergeticsSM technique developed by William Redpath who has helped his patients to achieve relief from painful migraines, musculoskeletal injuries and even learning and behavioural problems (see page 47).

I reckon that the best way forward to prevent being bamboozled by the medical and scientific establishment about erroneous causes of heart disease, or being negatively influenced by biased members in the media, is the development of a scientifically literate, highly critical and intensely questioning public. You ought to be able to trust experts – it's just that you are much more likely to be able to trust yourself, once you have researched all the facts.