What happens when something we’ve been told as scientific fact turns out to be absolutely false? In Jennifer Isenhart’s science documentary, The Cholesterol Code, she spotlights Dave Feldman, who debunks the dangers of cholesterol with scientific evidence of all things.
Dave Feldman didn’t set out to become a research subject. He was just your typical engineer who liked data, and when his blood work started coming up as pre-diabetes, he did what engineers do best: he changed the inputs. He went low-carb, then keto. What wound up happening was that Feldman’s blood sugar levels normalized, and he became sharper, leaner, and healthier by all accounts, but with one exception: his LDL cholesterol levels were off the charts. This test result meant that this healthy man was in line for a massive heart attack…or was he?
Here’s where most people would go on a statin regimen, but Dave didn’t. Instead, he turned to research. First came anecdotal stories of people across the country who exhibited the same LDL spike—healthy by all accounts but with huge LDL numbers. As word got out, people all over the world started reaching out with the same story, the same fear, the same unanswered question. So Dave did the only thing that made sense to him. He built a study. His only problem was that he didn’t have the money for such a study, and Big Pharma was locked into the cholesterol myth.
What the world didn’t expect was that so many individuals out there had experienced the same issues as Feldman—so many, in fact, that they banded together and crowdfunded the research study. They didn’t just reach their financial goal, but surpassed it to do a proper study that could be submitted to journals and lecture circuits.
Dave Feldman takes in the view of the Marlborough Sounds in New Zealand in The Cholesterol Code.
“What the world didn’t expect was that so many individuals out there had experienced the same issues as Feldman…that they banded together and crowdfunded the research study.”
The study was simple. Get about 200 subjects to obtain imaging of plaque levels in their hearts. Have them live on a ketogenic diet, and a year later, rescan their heart plaque levels. The results will surprise you…or they won’t.
Over the years, I’ve had the chance to watch and review a dozen documentaries about the myth of the food pyramid and the sudden rise in obesity among Americans since the introduction of a low-fat/high-fiber diet. These documentaries do a great job of finding experts to discuss their findings, but let’s be honest, it is a lot of talk… on both sides. Someone says, “I’m an expert,” and we’re supposed to naturally believe them.
The Cholesterol Code puts the experts’ money where their mouths are and actually does the research as a major part of the documentary. Discovering the truth is what science documentaries should be all about. Ultimately, is cholesterol truly dangerous?
Dave Feldman takes on a bold challenge to something the scientific community agrees is a fact, for the sake of a healthy society. Of course, he receives pushback from the same community, also searching for truth, who stand by their arrogant position that they have tested everything and their results are conclusive! Then, after the research (spoiler alert), the same community refuses to accept the results and buries any discussion of it. It’s about as dramatic a story as research can get.
I’ve always said you can’t fix a problem unless you know exactly what it is. Obesity is a problem of epidemic proportions, and we still don’t know what the real problem is…until now. The Cholesterol Code shouldn’t make you disbelieve all science, but it should make you thirsty to find the truth and call out old ways of thinking…especially when lives depend on it.
The Cholesterol Code is coming to AVOD YouTube on Friday, July 17, 2026.
"…in line for a massive heart attack...or was he?"
