A TOP doctor in East Lancashire has claimed that smoking and junk food have nothing to do with the cause of heart disease.

And Dr David Grimes has revealed there could be an intriguing link between the killer condition - and the weather!

His comments destroy the traditional theory that major causes of coronary heart disease are nicotine and a poor diet.

Dr Grimes, medical director of the Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley NHS Trust, has been a leading advocator of the growing belief that heart disease may be caused by an infection.

Along with colleagues in Blackburn, he has spent five years compiling research on the condition which is one of East Lancashire's biggest killers.

Dr Grimes said: "My idea is that smoking and bad diet have nothing to do with the cause of coronary heart disease."

In a letter to the New Scientist magazine, he said his research had taken a 'different look' at the relationship between cholesterol and coronary heart disease and why the North West, along with northern Finland, had the world's highest incident rate. He said: "We have within medicine a very powerful paradigm (pattern) that coronary heart disease is due to 'misbehaviour' - due to the way in which we live our lives, what we eat and whether we smoke and so on.

"But the evidence indicates that dietary manipulation is of no benefit and therefore diet cannot be causative.

"We have explored how climate might be involved, not as the cause but as a factor influencing susceptibility.

"We have looked at sunlight and demonstrated that it might well be involved in the metabolism of cholesterol and protection against heart disease."

Eight years ago Dr Grimes wrote an article entitled 'Is Coronary Heart Disease Due To A Microbe?' but it was never published as it was considered too far-fetched.

But in his letter, he added: "I believe that ...the prime mover is the cause the (infection) with cholesterol producing a secondary effect.

"A high cholesterol level is only important in people who have coronary heart disease. The problem is how do we identify the disease until a clinical event happens?"

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