Eggs are good for you – even with cholesterol!

New US dietary guidelines remove the daily cholesterol limit of 300mg, allowing egg lovers to consume this versatile protein with no guilt.

APRIL 7, 2018

For the first time in decades, the latest US Dietary Guidelines no longer recommend that we
limit our intake of cholesterol to 300mg a day, allowing more eggs. — TNS

April 7, 2018 Food, Food News, Health, Nutrition

By AGENCY

For the first time in decades, the latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans no longer recommend that we limit our intake of cholesterol to 300mg a day. (One egg yolk contains about 180mg of cholesterol.)

Instead, these experts tell us to limit saturated fat (eggs are low in this type of fat) and “eat as little dietary cholesterol as possible while consuming a healthy eating pattern”.

In other words, heart health appears to depend less on whether we eat eggs or not and more on the company they keep.

There’s a big difference, for example, between a breakfast of eggs, wholegrain toast, low fat yoghurt and fruit, and one that features eggs, sausage, biscuits and gravy.

Eggs have long scored the highest of all protein foods in quality and digestibility.

Each egg contains all the essential amino acids to build every type of protein our bodies need.

One amino acid is leucine – a powerful stimulant for building muscle tissue.

And eggs are cheap (cheep cheep) compared to most other sources of protein.

Besides protein, eggs are packed with 13 essential nutrients (meaning they are absolutely needed for our bodies to function).

According to the Egg Nutrition Center, eggs are one of very few foods that contain vitamin D naturally.

And these compact nutrition powerhouses also provide choline, a nutrient involved with brain development during pregnancy, plus memory and mood functions as we get older.

And here’s a surprise: Don’t toss the yolks. That’s where most of the nutrients in eggs reside, including vitamin D, choline and antioxidant substances.

Also, more than 40% of the protein in eggs is found in the yolk.

By the way, the colour of the egg does not change the nutrition of this food. Different hens lay different-coloured eggs.

The colour of the yolk, however, depends on the amount of orange and yellow plant pigments in the hen’s diet. – The Monterey County Herald/Tribune News Service

https://www.star2.com/health/2018/04/07/eggs-good-for-you

5 Unique Weight Loss Superfoods

July 5, 2013

It’s summertime… time for bathing suits, shorts, short sleeves. In other words, it’s time to pay closer attention to what we eat. But just because you are trying to lose weight doesn’t mean you have to give up good foods. In fact, some foods can even help you.

Here are five superfoods that will help break down fat and speed up your metabolism.

1. Avocados – Yes, this versatile fruit contains quite a bit of fat. But it has monounsaturated fats (MUFAs) that may help your body quiet hunger.1 Avocados are also packed with fiber and protein. Since they’re so creamy, they’re a great substitute for mayonnaise. A quarter or a half of an avocado is all you need to see the belly fat disappear. A quarter of a medium-sized avocado contains 65 calories.2

2. Grapefruit – You’ve probably heard of the Grapefruit Diet. And while we would never recommend something so extreme, there’s a reason this diet exists. Grapefruit actually lowers insulin in the body. The result? You’ll feel less hungry. Not only that, but they’re also high in fiber. So you feel fuller longer. Studies suggest that eating grapefruit will help you lose weight. People who ate grapefruit for 12 weeks lost an average of 3.6 pounds. Some even lost as much as 10 pounds.3 Grapefruit is 90 percent water so it will keep you hydrated and full. If you eat grapefruit just be aware that it may cause an interaction with any medication you are taking.

3. Broccoli – It helps fill you up because of its high fiber content. As a bonus, it is loaded with vitamins C and A, folic acid, and calcium. It also contains sulforaphane that helps fight and prevent cancer. Eat it raw when possible. Once cooked it loses some of its nutrients. But no matter how you eat it—raw, steamed, cooked—broccoli can help aid in your weight loss goal. One serving is less than 30 calories so you don’t even need to feel guilty for indulging.

4. Red Wine – Who knew losing weight could be so relaxing? Red wine blocks fat cells.4 It stops the process called adipogenesis, where early stage fat cells mature. Although the calories in alcohol are quickly absorbed into the body, they’re not stored in fat cells. Drinking a glass of wine can help boost your metabolism and calorie burn for as long as 90 minutes.5 The relaxing drink has also been shown to suppress appetite to prevent overeating.6 Because of its high sugar content you should keep your wine consumption light to moderate. Heavy drinking will result in weight gain. But a glass a night may help you shed those pesky unwanted pounds.

5. Chocolate – Yes! A little bit of dark (at least 70 percent cocoa) chocolate helps slow down your digestion. That helps you feel full longer and prevent you from eating more at your next meal. A study in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that men and women who ate chocolate more frequently had a lower body-mass index (BMI). The flavanols and other ingredients in chocolate help your metabolism work harder.7 Chocolate helps reduce your risk of heart disease and stroke. It also reduces your blood pressure and cholesterol. This doesn’t mean if you eat a Snickers bar every day the pounds will just drop. Simple dark chocolate is the healthiest and best option. But of course as with everything… moderation is key.

You don’t have to forego delicious foods and drinks to drop those few extra pounds. These five foods aren’t your typical weight loss foods and they’re delicious.

Losing those last few pounds can be a nightmare and a real challenge. We’ve uncovered what could be the real reason you can’t keep off those pesky pounds (and how to finally get rid of them for good!). Discover how to naturally conquer your weight without pills, side effects and without starving yourself…while eating delicious food—HERE.

References:
1 http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20475957_4,00.html
2 http://health.usnews.com/health-news/diet-fitness/diet/slideshows/use-these-8-foods-to-help-you-lose-weight/3
3 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3439391.stm
4 http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research/2012/120404KimPiceatannol.html
5 http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20475957_10,00.html
6 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9566222/Red-wine-could-help-you-lose-weight.html
7 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2120695/An-excuse-eat-chocolate-Eating-small-regularly-actually-help-lose-weight.html

Related Articles:

• Cut Food Cravings and Possible Weight Gain with Breakfast
• Five Kitchen Spices That Rev Up Weight-Loss
• Burn Calories and Build Muscle Mass with This Fruit
• A Sweet and Tasty Cough Medicine
• The Once Forbidden Fruit that Keeps Cancer Away

http://institutefornaturalhealing.com/2013/07/5-unique-weight-loss-superfoods/

Statins Shown to Nullify Benefits of Exercise

June 07, 2013

Story at-a-glance

• Exercise is a foundational strategy to naturally maintain healthy cholesterol levels and optimize your heart health. However, research now shows that if you take a statin drug, you’re likely to forfeit any and all health benefits of your exercise
• Volunteers taking a statin improved their fitness by just 1.5 percent, and some had reduced aerobic capacity at the end of a 12-week fitness program. Mitochondrial content activity also decreased by an average of 4.5 percent
• In comparison, unmedicated volunteers improved their aerobic fitness by more than 10 percent after the 12-week fitness program, and their mitochondrial content activity increased by 13 percent
• Statin drugs, which millions are taking as a form of “preventive medicine” to protect their heart health, can have detrimental effects on your heart

By Dr. Mercola

Statins are now among the most widely prescribed drugs on the market with one in four Americans over 45 taking them, and are the number one profit-maker for the pharmaceutical industry, largely due to relentless and highly successful direct-to-consumer advertising campaigns. 

In fact, a recent study assessing the effect of direct-to-consumer drug advertising concluded that TV ads for statins may be a driving factor of overdiagnosis of high cholesterol and overtreatment with the drugs.¹ 

Statins are HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, that is, they act by blocking the enzyme in your liver that is responsible for making cholesterol (HMG-CoA reductase).  

The fact that statin drugs cause side effects is well established—there are over 900 studies proving their adverse effects, which run the gamut from muscle problems to increased cancer risk.  

The biggest “sham” of all is that statin drugs, which millions are taking as a form of “preventive medicine” to protect their heart health, can have detrimental effects on your heart.  

For example, a study published just last year in the journal Atherosclerosis², showed that statin use is associated with a 52 percent increased prevalence and extent of calcified coronary plaque compared to non-users. And coronary artery calcification is the hallmark of potentially lethal heart disease! 

Now, researchers have uncovered yet another MAJOR problem associated with these drugs. One of the major benefits of exercise is the beneficial impact it has on your heart health, and exercise is a primary strategy to naturally maintain healthy cholesterol levels. Alas, if you take a statin drug, you’re likely to forfeit any and all health benefits of your exercise.  

As reported by The New York Times³:

“The drugs routinely are prescribed for those with high cholesterol and other risk factors for heart disease, and some physicians believe that they should be used prophylactically by virtually everyone over 50.

... [P]eople who should benefit the most from exercise — those who are sedentary, overweight, at risk of heart disease or middle-aged — are also the people most likely to be put on statins, possibly undoing some of the good of their workouts.

... In past studies, researchers have shown that statins reduce the risk of a heart attack in people at high risk by 10 to 20 percent for every 1-millimole-per-liter reduction in blood cholesterol levels (millimoles measure the actual number of cholesterol molecules in the bloodstream), equivalent to about a 40-point drop in LDL levels.

Meanwhile, improving aerobic fitness by even a small percentage through exercise likewise has been found to lessen someone’s likelihood of dying prematurely by as much as 50 percent.

... But until the current study, no experiment scrupulously had explored the interactions of statin drugs and workouts in people. And the results, as it turns out, are worrisome.”

Statins Can Undo the Benefits of Exercise

The study, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology⁴, discovered that statin use led to dramatically reduced fitness benefits from exercise, in some cases actually making the volunteer LESS fit than before! 

The participants in the study included 37 overweight, sedentary men and women, all of whom had symptoms of metabolic problems, such as high blood pressure or excess abdominal fat. None of them had exercised regularly within the past 12 months, and most had slightly but not excessively elevated cholesterol levels.  

Before the trial, muscle biopsies were taken from each participant to evaluate mitochondrial content, and their aerobic fitness was determined using treadmill testing. All participants were instructed to maintain their regular diet. The participants were then divided into two groups. One group was given a daily 40 mg dose of simvastatin (Zocor). The other group did not receive any medication. Both groups then began a supervised 12-week exercise program, walking or jogging on a treadmill for 45 minutes, five days a week. At the end of the three-month long trial, their aerobic fitness and muscles were retested. The results were astounding:

• On average, unmedicated volunteers improved their aerobic fitness by more than 10 percent. Mitochondrial content activity increased by 13 percent
• Volunteers taking 40mg of simvastatin improved their fitness by a mere 1.5 percent on average, and some had reduced their aerobic capacity at the end of the 12-week fitness program. Mitochondrial content activity decreased by an average of 4.5 percent

According to senior study author John P. Thyfault, a professor of nutrition and exercise physiology at the University of Missouri⁵:

“Low aerobic fitness is one of the best predictors of premature death. And if statins prevent people from raising their fitness through exercise, then that is a concern.”

How Statins Might Undo Fitness Benefits and Make Your Heart Health Worse

The key to understanding why statins prevent your body from reaping the normal benefits from exercise lies in understanding what these drugs do to your mitochondria—the energy chamber of your cells, responsible for the utilization of energy for all metabolic functions.  

The primary fuel for your mitochondria is Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), and one of the primary mechanisms of harm from statins in general appears to be related to CoQ10 depletion. This also explains why certain statin users in the featured trial ended up with worse aerobic fitness after a steady fitness regimen.  

It's been known for many decades that exercise helps to build and strengthen your muscles, but more recent research has revealed that this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the potential role exercise can play in your health. A 2011 review published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism⁶ pointed out that exercise induces changes in mitochondrial enzyme content and activity (which is what they tested in the featured study), which can increase your cellular energy production and in so doing decrease your risk of chronic disease.  

The researchers stated:

"Increasing evidence now suggests that exercise can induce mitochondrial biogenesis in a wide range of tissues not normally associated with the metabolic demands of exercise. Perturbations [changes] in mitochondrial content and (or) function have been linked to a wide variety of diseases, in multiple tissues, and exercise may serve as a potent approach by which to prevent and (or) treat these pathologies."

Increasing mitochondrial activity is incredibly important because free radicals, which are toxic byproducts of metabolism as well as exposures to chemicals, pollutants and other toxins, can overwhelm your body's defenses, leading to oxidative damage to cells and tissues that can destroy cellular proteins, lipids and DNA, as well as lead to the loss of mitochondrial function. In the long-term, irreversible damage in the mitochondria can occur, leading to:

• Lower threshold for physical exercise
• Impaired ability to utilize carbohydrates and fat for energy
• Insulin resistance
• Excessive weight gain
• Accelerated aging

If You’re on a Statin Drug, You MUST Take CoQ10...

If you take a statin drug without supplementing with CoQ10—or ideally, the reduced form, called ubiquinol, which is far more effective—your health is at serious risk. CoQ10 is used by every cell in your body, but especially your heart cells. Cardiac muscle cells have up to 200 times more mitochondria, and hence 200 times higher CoQ10 requirements than skeletal muscle.  

Now imagine if you start straining your heart with exercise and not counteracting the CoQ10 depletion caused by the drug... it’s no wonder, really, that statin users couldn’t improve their fitness levels! There simply wasn’t enough mitochondrial fuel in their system. This is why supplementing with ubiquinol or CoQ10 is so critical when you’re taking a statin drug. A recent study in the European Journal of Pharmacology⁷ showed that ubiquinol effectively rescued cells from the damage caused by the statin drug simvastatin, thereby protecting muscle cells from myopathies.  

Premature aging is yet another side effect of statin drugs, and it's also a primary side effect of having too little CoQ10. Deficiency in this nutrient also accelerates DNA damage, and because CoQ10 is beneficial to heart health and muscle function this depletion leads to fatigue, muscle weakness, soreness and, ultimately, heart failure... 

Again demonstrating the necessity of CoQ10 supplementation during statin therapy, a recent study⁸ evaluating the benefits of CoQ10 and selenium supplementation for patients with statin-associated myopathy found that, compared to those given a placebo, the treatment group experienced significantly less pain, decreased muscle weakness and cramps, and less fatigue. 

Statins also interfere with the mevalonate pathway, which is the central pathway for the steroid management in your body. This too could be a contributing factor as to why statins have such a detrimental impact on your ability to reap health benefits from exercise. As previously explained by Dr. Ron Rosedale:

"First and foremost, cholesterol is a vital component of every cell membrane on Earth. In other words, there is no life on Earth that can live without cholesterol. That will automatically tell you that, in and of itself, it cannot be evil. In fact, it is one of our best friends. We would not be here without it. No wonder lowering cholesterol too much increases one's risk of dying. Cholesterol is also a precursor to all of the steroid hormones. You cannot make estrogen, testosterone, cortisone, and a host of other vital hormones without cholesterol."

Beware the Health Hazards of Statin Drugs!

First, if you are a woman, it’s critical for you to know that statins are classified as a "pregnancy Category X medication" meaning, it causes serious birth defects, and should NEVER be used if you’re pregnant or planning a pregnancy.  Last year, the US Food and Drug Administration⁹ (FDA) also announced it’s considering additional warning labels for statin drugs. Among them are warnings that statins may increase your risk of:

• Liver damage
• Memory loss and confusion
• Type 2 diabetes
• Muscle weakness (for certain statins)

In all, statin drugs have been directly linked to over 300 side effects¹⁰, including: 

Cognitive loss	Neuropathy	Anemia
Acidosis	Frequent fevers	Cataracts
Sexual dysfunction	An increase in cancer risk	Pancreatic dysfunction
Immune system suppression	Muscle problems, polyneuropathy (nerve damage in the hands and feet), and rhabdomyolysis, a serious degenerative muscle tissue condition	Hepatic dysfunction (Due to the potential increase in liver enzymes, patients must be monitored for normal liver function)

Exercise Is Important for Heart Health

As mentioned in the featured article, improving your aerobic fitness by even just a small amount can cut your risk of premature death in half. Clearly, taking a drug that decimates your CoQ10 stores, thereby contributing to worsening heart health in the long run, while simultaneously obliterating the benefits of exercise, is not a wise move for the vast majority of people. 

Regular exercise is a cornerstone of healthy cholesterol management. I strongly recommend incorporating high intensity interval exercises, as this also helps optimize your human growth hormone (HGH) production.  

When it comes to exercise, more is not always better. As I've learned in more recent years, the opposite is frequently true—especially if you’re seeking longevity and optimal health, opposed to winning athletic competitions. Granted, most people are not exercising enough, so this warning does not apply to most of you reading this. But it's still important to understand that not only is it possible to over-exercise, but focusing on the wrong type of exercise to the exclusion of other important areas can actually do you more harm than good.  

Research emerging over the past several years has given us a deeper understanding of what your body requires in terms of exercise, and many of our past notions have simply been incorrect. 

For example, there's compelling evidence showing that high-intensity interval training, which requires but a fraction of the time compared to conventional cardio, is FAR more efficient, and more effective. You can literally reap greater rewards in less time. The same can be said for the super-slow form of weight training, which mirrors many of the health benefits of high-intensity interval training. There’s compelling evidence that the best fitness regimen is one that mimics the movements of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, which included short bursts of high-intensity activities, but not long-distance running.

How to Optimize Your Cholesterol Levels Naturally

The most effective way to optimize your cholesterol profile and prevent heart disease is via diet and exercise. Seventy-five percent of your cholesterol is produced by your liver, which is influenced by your insulin levels. Therefore, if you optimize your insulin level, you will automatically optimize your cholesterol and reduce your risk of both diabetes and heart disease.  

There is NO drug that can cure heart disease, as the underlying cause is insulin and leptin resistance and arterial wall damage—both of which are caused by eating excessive amounts of sugars, grains, and especially fructose. So, in addition to regular exercise, my primary recommendations for safely regulating your cholesterol and reducing your risk of heart disease include:

• Reduce, with the plan of eliminating grains and fructose from your diet. This is one of the best ways to optimize your insulin levels, which will have a positive effect on not just your cholesterol, but also reduces your risk of diabetes and heart disease, and most other chronic diseases. Use my Nutrition Plan to help you determine the ideal diet for you, and consume a good portion of your food raw.
• Start intermittent fasting, which will radically improve your ability to burn fat as your primary fuel and thus help improve your insulin and leptin signaling.
• Get plenty of high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fats, such as krill oil, and reduce your consumption of damaged omega-6 fats (trans fats, vegetable oils) to balance out your omega-3 to omega-6 ratio.
• Include heart-healthy foods in your diet, such as olive oil, coconut and coconut oil, organic raw dairy products and eggs, avocados, raw nuts and seeds, and organic grass-fed meats.
• Optimize your vitamin D levels by getting proper sun exposure or using a safe tanning bed.
• Optimize your gut flora, as recent research suggests the bacterial balance in your intestines may play a role in your susceptibility to heart disease as well
• Walk barefoot to ground yourself to the earth. Lack of grounding has a lot to do with the rise of modern diseases as it affects inflammatory processes in your body. Grounding thins your blood, making it less viscous. Virtually every aspect of cardiovascular disease has been correlated with elevated blood viscosity.
When you ground to the earth, your zeta potential quickly rises, which means your red blood cells have more charge on their surface, which forces them apart from each other. This action causes your blood to thin and flow easier. By repelling each other, your red blood cells are also less inclined to stick together and form a clot.

• Avoid smoking or drinking alcohol excessively.
• Be sure to get plenty of good, restorative sleep.

Do You REALLY Need a Statin Drug?

That these drugs have proliferated the market the way they have is a testimony to the effectiveness of direct-to-consumer marketing, corruption and corporate greed, because the odds are very high that if you're taking a statin, you don't really need it. From my review, the ONLY subgroup that could benefit would be those born with a genetic defect called familial hypercholesterolemia, as this makes them resistant to traditional measures of normalizing cholesterol.  

Remember, your body needs cholesterol for the production of cell membranes, hormones, and vitamin D, just to mention a few. Cholesterol is also vital to your neurological function. And there’s strong evidence that having too little cholesterol increases your risk for cancer, memory loss, Parkinson's disease, hormonal imbalances, stroke, depression, suicide, and violent behavior.  

Contrary to what pharmaceutical PR firms will tell you, statins have nothing to do with reducing your heart disease risk. In fact, this class of drugs can increase your heart disease risk—especially if you do not take Ubiquinol (CoQ10) along with it to mitigate the depletion of CoQ10 caused by the drug. To learn more about statins, please see my special report: Do YOU Take Any of These 11 Dangerous Cholesterol Drugs? 

Poor lifestyle choices are primarily to blame for elevated cholesterol levels, such as too much sugar, too little exercise, lack of sun exposure and never grounding to the earth. These are all things that are within your control, and don’t cost much (if any) money to address.  

The fact that statins can effectively nullify the benefits of healthy lifestyle changes like exercise, which in and of itself is important to bolster heart health and maintain healthy cholesterol levels, is yet another reason to think twice before opting for such a drug.  

Also remember that the BEST way to condition your heart and burn fat is NOT to jog steadily for an hour. Instead, it’s to alternate short bursts of high-intensity exercise with gentle recovery periods. This type of exercise, known as interval training, can dramatically improve your cardiovascular fitness and fat-burning capabilities. You can still incorporate some of the endurance cardio into your routine, but make sure you take advantage of interval training. The new evidence suggests that this may actually provide MORE protection against heart attacks than long durational aerobic-type exercises. 

If you’re currently taking a statin drug and are worried about the excessive side effects they cause, please consult with a knowledgeable health care practitioner who can help you to optimize your heart health naturally, without the use of these dangerous drugs.

[-] Sources and References

• ¹ Eurekalert March 7, 2013
• ² Atherosclerosis August 24, 2012: 225(1):148-53
• ³ New York Times May 22, 2013
• ⁴ Journal of the American College of Cardiology April 10, 2013 [Epub ahead of print]
• ⁵ New York Times May 22, 2013
• ⁶ Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism 2011 Oct;36(5):598-607
• ⁷ European Journal of Pharmacology April 24, 2013
• ⁸ Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology 02/2013; 91(2):165-70
• ⁹ FDA Drug Safety Announcement
• ¹⁰ GreenMedInfo.com, Statin Drugs

http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2013/06/07/statins-exercise.aspx?

Cholesterol Plays Key Role in Cell Signaling

January 16, 2013 |50,869views

Story at-a-glance

• Recent research revealed that cholesterol plays a key role in regulating protein pathways involved in cell signaling and may also regulate other cellular processes
• It’s already known that cholesterol plays a critical role within your cell membranes, but this new research suggests cholesterol also interacts with proteins inside your cells, adding even more importance
• Having too little cholesterol is actually a verifiable risk to your health and may impact your brain health, hormone levels, heart disease risk and more
• Placing an upper limit on dietary cholesterol, especially such a LOW upper limit as is now recommended, is likely causing far more harm than good; cholesterol-rich foods like eggs and butter are quite healthy for most people

By Dr. Mercola

Are you still under the impression that cholesterol is a dietary villain and a primary cause of heart disease? And do you avoid eating healthy animal foods like eggs, butter and grass-fed beef because of “high-cholesterol” fears?

It’s time for these pervasive myths to be laid to rest, as when you understand the truth about how cholesterol works in your body you’ll realize it’s not an enemy to your health, but instead plays an essential role in keeping your body functioning optimally.

Cholesterol Crucial for Healthy Cell Functioning

Cholesterol has been demonized since the early 1950's, following the popularization of Ancel Keys' flawed research. As a result, people now spend tens of billions of dollars on cholesterol-reducing drugs each year, thinking they have to lower this "dangerous" molecule lest they keel over from a heart attack.

But cholesterol has many health benefits. Recent research revealed, for instance, that cholesterol plays a key role in regulating protein pathways involved in cell signaling and may also regulate other cellular processes.¹

It’s already known that cholesterol plays a critical role within your cell membranes, but this new research suggests cholesterol also interacts with proteins inside your cells, adding even more importance.

Your body is composed of trillions of cells that need to interact with each other.

Cholesterol is one of the molecules that allow for these interactions to take place. For example, cholesterol is the precursor to bile acids, so without sufficient amounts of cholesterol, your digestive system can be adversely affected.

It also plays an essential role in your brain, which contains about 25 percent of the cholesterol in your body. It is critical for synapse formation, i.e. the connections between your neurons, which allow you to think, learn new things, and form memories.

In fact, there's reason to believe that low-fat diets and/or cholesterol-lowering drugs may cause or contribute to Alzheimer's disease. Low cholesterol levels have also been linked to violent behavior, due to adverse changes in brain chemistry, particularly a reduction in serotonin activity Furthermore, you need cholesterol to produce steroid hormones, including your sex hormones. Vitamin D is also synthesized from a close relative of cholesterol: 7-dehydrocholesterol.

Cholesterol is Necessary for Life Itself

Download Interview Transcript

Considering the fact that conventional medicine has been telling us that heart disease is due to elevated cholesterol and recommends lowering cholesterol levels as much as possible, it may come as a shock to learn that having too little cholesterol is actually a verifiable risk to your health. As Chris Masterjohn, who recently received his PhD in nutritional sciences from the University of Connecticut, explained, to get an idea of the importance of cholesterol you only need to look at what happens if you don’t have it…

"If we want to understand why cholesterol is really an incredibly important molecule and is really our friend rather than our enemy, I think what we should look at is the question, 'What happens without cholesterol?' he says.

...[L]ook at Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome or SLOS, which is a symptom of genetic deficiency in cholesterol. It's when people can't make enough cholesterol on their own. In order to actually have this full-blown syndrome, it's a recessive trait, which means you need a defective gene for cholesterol synthesis from your father, and you need one from your mother as well. Now, the number of people who carry this defective gene in the population is about one to three percent of the population.

However, the number of babies who are born with Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome is far lower than we would expect. ...It turns out that if [the fetus] has both of these genes and the unborn child can't synthesize its own cholesterol, then this usually results in spontaneous abortion. So right away we see that cholesterol is needed for life itself..."

In those rare cases where a baby is born with Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome, the child is susceptible to and can present a wide range of defects, such as:

Autism or mental retardation	Failure to thrive	Physical defects in hands, feet and/or internal organs
Visual problems	Increased susceptibility to infection	Digestive problems

Heart Disease May Even be Caused by a Cholesterol Deficiency

According to Dr. Stephanie Seneff:

"Heart disease, I think, is a cholesterol deficiency problem, and in particular a cholesterol sulfate deficiency problem..."

Through her research, she has developed a theory in which the mechanism we call "cardiovascular disease" (of which arterial plaque is a hallmark) is actually your body's way to compensate for not having enough cholesterol sulfate. She believes that cholesterol combines with sulfur to form cholesterol sulfate, and this cholesterol sulfate helps thin your blood by serving as a reservoir for the electron donations you receive when walking barefoot on the earth (also called grounding). She believes that, via this blood-thinning mechanism, cholesterol sulfate may provide natural protection against heart disease. In fact, she goes so far as to hypothesize that heart disease is likely the result of cholesterol deficiency — which of course is diametrically opposed to the conventional view.

Total Cholesterol Level is Not a Reliable Indicator of Your Heart Disease Risk

As the the leading causes of death in the United States, it’s important to monitor your risk factors for heart disease and make changes to your lifestyle accordingly. However, total cholesterol will tell you virtually nothing about your disease risk, unless it's exceptionally elevated (above 330 or so, which would be suggestive of familial hypercholesterolemia, and is, in my view, about the only time a cholesterol-lowering drug would be appropriate). Two ratios that are far better indicators of heart disease risk are:

1. Your HDL/total cholesterol ratio: HDL percentage is a very potent indicator of your heart disease risk. Just divide your HDL level by your total cholesterol. This percentage should ideally be above 24 percent. Below 10 percent, it's a significant indicator of risk for heart disease
2. Your triglyceride/HDL ratios: This percentage should ideally be below 2

Four additional risk factors for heart disease are:

1. Your fasting insulin level: Any meal or snack high in carbohydrates like fructose and refined grains generates a rapid rise in blood glucose and then insulin to compensate for the rise in blood sugar. The insulin released from eating too many carbs promotes fat and makes it more difficult for your body to shed excess weight, and excess fat, particularly around your belly, is one of the major contributors to heart disease.
Your fasting insulin level can be determined by a simple, inexpensive blood test. A normal fasting blood insulin level is below 5, but ideally you'll want it below 3. If your insulin level is higher than 3 to 5, the most effective way to optimize it is to reduce or eliminate all forms of dietary sugar, particularly fructose, from your diet.

2. Your fasting blood sugar level: Studies have shown that people with a fasting blood sugar level of 100-125 mg/dl had a nearly 300 percent higher risk of having coronary heart disease than people with a level below 79 mg/dl.
3. Your waist circumference: Visceral fat, the type of fat that collects around your internal organs, is a well-recognized risk factor for heart disease. The simplest way to evaluate your risk here is by simply measuring your waist circumference. For further instructions, please see my previous article, Your Waist Size Can Be a Powerful Predictor of Hypertension and Other Chronic Diseases.
4. Your iron level: Iron can be a very potent cause of oxidative stress, so if you have excess iron levels you can damage your blood vessels and increase your risk of heart disease. Ideally, you should monitor your ferritin levels and make sure they are not much above 80 ng/ml. The simplest way to lower them if they are elevated is to donate your blood. If that is not possible you can have a therapeutic phlebotomy and that will effectively eliminate the excess iron from your body.

Do You Need to Monitor Your Dietary Cholesterol Intake?

About 80-90 percent of the cholesterol in your body is produced by your liver, which has led to the faulty assumption that cholesterol from dietary sources can, and should, be avoided. Dr. Seneff actually believes it's difficult to get "too much" cholesterol in your diet, particularly in the standard American diet. But you may very well be getting too little, and that can cause serious problems. She points to the research by Weston A. Price, a dentist by profession who traveled all around the world studying the health effects of indigenous diets. Interestingly enough, many indigenous diets are shockingly high in dietary cholesterol based on today's conventional medical standards.

Cholesterol-rich foods like caviar, liver and the adrenal glands of bears were highly valued in some cultures that also had very low rates of heart disease and other modern diseases.

Dr. Seneff believes, as do I, that placing an upper limit on dietary cholesterol, especially such a LOW upper limit as is now recommended, is likely causing far more harm than good. You can get an idea of what types of cholesterol-rich foods to include in your diet by following my nutrition plan. As Masterjohn further pointed out:²

“Since we cannot possibly eat enough cholesterol to use for our bodies' daily functions, our bodies make their own. When we eat more foods rich in this compound, our bodies make less. If we deprive ourselves of foods high in cholesterol -- such as eggs, butter, and liver — our body revs up its cholesterol synthesis. The end result is that, for most of us, eating foods high in cholesterol has very little impact on our blood cholesterol levels.

In seventy percent of the population, foods rich in cholesterol such as eggs cause only a subtle increase in cholesterol levels or none at all. In the other thirty percent, these foods do cause a rise in blood cholesterol levels.  

Despite this, research has never established any clear relationship between the consumption of dietary cholesterol and the risk for heart disease… Raising cholesterol levels is not necessarily a bad thing either.”

How to Optimize Your Cholesterol Levels Naturally

The goal of the guidelines below is not to lower your cholesterol as low as it can go, but rather to optimize your levels so they're working in the proper balance with your body.  

Again, the majority of your cholesterol is produced by your liver, which is influenced by your insulin levels. Therefore, if you optimize your insulin level, you will automatically optimize your cholesterol. This is why my primary recommendations for safely regulating your cholesterol have to do with modifying your diet and lifestyle as follows:

• Reduce, with the plan of eliminating, grains and sugars in your diet. It is vitally important to eliminate gluten-containing grains and dangerous sugars especially fructose.
• Consume a good portion of your food raw.
• Make sure you are getting plenty of high-quality, animal-based omega 3 fats, such as krill oil. Research suggests that as little as 500 mg of krill per day may improve your total cholesterol and triglycerides and will likely increase your HDL cholesterol.
• Replace harmful vegetable oils and synthetic trans fats with healthful fats, such as olive oil, butter and coconut oil (remember olive oil should be used cold only, use coconut oil for cooking and baking).
• Include fermented foods in your daily diet. This will not only optimize your intestinal microflora, which will boost your overall immunity, it will also introduce beneficial bacteria into your mouth. Poor oral health is another powerful indicator of increased heart disease risk.
• Optimize your vitamin D levels, ideally through appropriate sun exposure as this will allow your body to also create vitamin D sulfate—another factor that may play a crucial role in preventing the formation of arterial plaque.
• Exercise regularly. Make sure you incorporate high-intensity interval exercises, which also optimize your human growth hormone (HGH) production.
• Avoid smoking or drinking alcohol excessively.
• Be sure to get plenty of high-quality, restorative sleep.

[-] Sources and References

• Nature Communications December 4, 2012; 3:1249
• Medical News Today January 1, 2013

• ¹ Nature Communications December 4, 2012; 3:1249
• ² Cholesterol-and-health.com March 2007

Cholesterol Plays Key Role in Cell Signaling

The “low-fat” fad was so last year

Posted by Alica on June 12, 2012

The “low-fat” fad was so last year

I’m surprised at the amount of people that are still fat-phobic. I thought that fad died out with acid washed jeans and scrunchies years ago. When will people realize that just because we eat fat does not mean that we will become fat. Fat is an essential part of a nutritious diet. In fact, fat is required by our bodies in order to absorb the fat-soluble vitamins; A, D, E, and K. Fat is also one of the three essential macronutrients. Without fat not only will the body not be able to absorb some vitamins and minerals, but many other functions of the body will not be able to work properly. Low fat diets are even linked with higher rates of depression and suicide. Eating a meal that contains fat helps the body feel satiety during a meal. Without that fat our body doesn’t get the signal that we have had enough to eat until we are already too stuffed; which means over consumption of calories.

Before you jump for joy thinking that I gave you permission to go out and order 50 double cheeseburgers from McDonalds, let me get one thing straight…not all fat is created equal. Bad fats such as foods that contain hydrogenated oils, trans fats, fat-free, or low fat can lead to weight gain, but worse than that they can lead to cardiovascular issues, diabetes, and other not so favorable conditions.

We have been so programmed to associate the fat we eat with the fat on our body, hence the continuous rise of the fat-free/low-fat craze. But as I said already these products actually can lead to a host of issues including weight gain.

How you ask?

If you were to take fat out of a food, the flavor would not be the same. So how then does your fat free yogurt still taste delicious? When fat is artificially removed from a food, additives much be added in to replace the missing flavor; which usually are in the form of processed salt and refined carbohydrates. So people that are on the fat-free/low-fat bandwagon are consuming a diet much higher in carbohydrates, sugars, and chemicals. If you don’t think that all that can lead to weight gain then you must be new to my blog.

Take the popular skim milk for example:

Skim milk is made by separating and removing the fat content from whole milk. This leaves the milk a blueish-gray color, and also may decrease its protein content. To boost protein and whiteness, then, it’s common for milk producers to add milk powder to nonfat (and possibly 1% and 2%) milk, via a process that subjects the milk to high temperatures and pressure. This process also causes skim milk’s cholesterol to oxidize. Oxidized cholesterol is carcinogenic, and has been shown (in animals studies, at least) to promote plaque formation in arteries and heart disease. Meanwhile, there’s little evidence that a low-fat diet, in and of itself, can actually prevent heart disease. -Bliss Tree

How about that, a nice cold glass of oxidized cholesterol and carcinogens!

You see, it is not cholesterol that is the enemy here — your body actually needs cholesterol to function properly. It is instead the arterial wall inflammation caused by low-fat, omega-6-rich diets that is the problem, as this damaged tissue collects cholesterol and causes the blockages responsible for causing heart events like strokes. -Natural News

Not only are fat-free/low fat foods higher in carbohydrates, sugars, and chemicals they are also more likely to be eaten in excess. Foods that contain fat as I mentioned earlier allows our body to receive the signal that the we have eaten enough. Not only do fat-free foods dampen this signal, people also tend to over eat these foods in general, because these foods are “guilt-free.”

 

Eating a diet high in fat and low in carbohydrates is the best approach for fat loss. Image that: eating fat to lose fat, who would have thought? By eating less carbohydrates the body can then access stored body fat rather than lean mass which helps with fat loss. Because think about it; if your diet is based on labels promising “fat-free” or “low-fat” then your diet is most likely full of simple carbohydrates which are spiking your blood sugar, causing the release of large amounts of insulin, which takes the glucose that you can not use right away from the blood and stores it in the liver and fat cells…creating body fat! If you limit your carbohydrates and consume more fat, the body has to burn body fat to use as energy instead. Granted if you eat too much fat your body can store it as fat, but that is one of the benefits of fat, you are less likely to over eat.

 

This sounds like a no brainer to me, eat food that tastes naturally delicious without the artificial chemicals and that eaten in the right amount has many health promoting benefits, including fat loss. The problem is that even though we hear about all the dangers of fat-free/low-fat foods, we see that it doesn’t help with weight loss, and we hear about the benefits of healthy fats in our diet it has been so ingrained in our heads to associate fat as evil. As I am enjoying my full-fat avocado I can’t help to think that it could possibly be making its way to my hips, buttocks, belly with each bite, instantly adhering to my problems areas, and setting me further back from my goal. I know better to believe these things, but our minds have become so polluted on what “healthy” actually is.

 

Pura Vida,

Alica Ryan, NTP
Picture

http://www.puravidanutrition.org/2012/06/the-low-fat-fad-was-so-last-year.html

Just One More Reason “Dieting” is Bad for You

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Yesterday, we told you about an important food that science shows can boost male fertility. Today we’re going to dig a little bit deeper to see how your diet affects another part of your manhood…

It seems simple enough. You want to lose weight. So you cut fat and calories from your your diet.
Bad idea…

These “healthy” changes to your diet actually lower levels of an important hormone. A hormone that actually helps burn fat and build muscle.

That hormone is testosterone. It is the most important male sex hormone.¹ In children it helps the body develop adult male features. For adults, it plays a key role in sex drive and sperm count. Plus it keeps muscles and bones strong and healthy.

But testosterone is also important for women. Along with estrogen, it is involved in the growth, maintenance, and repair of reproductive tissues. And like in men, testosterone helps women develop body tissues and bone mass.

Diseases, medications, and lifestyle choices all affect testosterone.² And now more and more research proves that diet plays a vital role in maintaining healthy hormone levels.

A study published in the Journal of Steroid Biochemistry followed 30 healthy males.³ Researchers altered the men’s diets: from 40% fat calories to 25%. Saturated fat was decreased, while polyunsaturated fat was increased.

After six weeks, the men showed an 18% decrease in total testosterone. And a 15% decrease in non-protein bound (free) testosterone. Once the men returned to their regular diets, levels returned to normal.

Dr. Christina Wang from UCLA got the same results in a similar study.⁴ Dr. Wang and her team studied 39 middle-aged men.

For the first eight weeks the men consumed a regular high-fat, low-fiber diet. They then switched to a low-fat, high-fiber diet for another eight weeks. While on the low-fat diet the men suffered a 12% decrease in testosterone.

But it’s not just a fat-restricted diet that can affect hormone levels…

Researchers from London studied the effects of caloric intake.⁵ Their research was published in the journal Clinical Endocrinology. For the study, women were given a very low calorie diet (330 kcal/day). After just two weeks they showed a 40% decrease in free testosterone levels.

But why?

It’s quite simple…

Your body needs fat. Fat contains cholesterol. And your body converts cholesterol to testosterone.⁶

And despite what most people believe, fat and cholesterol aren’t necessarily bad for you.
There are good fats. As well as good (HDL) cholesterol.

But people eliminate these core diet elements try when they try to lose weight. . And when they try to gain muscle they indulge in high-protein, low-carb diets. Yes, muscle is made of protein, but you need testosterone to help build that muscle.⁷ And to maintain healthy levels of the hormone, you need fat in your diet.

Of course, this doesn’t mean loading up on fatty foods. And definitely don’t hit the closest fast food drive thru. It goes both ways… Research has also shown that men with high amounts of body fat tend to have low testosterone too.⁸

So, how do you lose weight, build muscle, and burn fat without sacrificing testosterone?

Avoid the extremes.

No harsh dieting. No overweight, sedentary lifestyle. Reduce calories slightly.

Aim for a diet with mostly healthy fats, monosaturated and unsaturated. That includes nuts, seeds, olive oil, avocados and omega-3 fish.

You also need to include some saturated fats. Lean protein including wild fish, farm-raised poultry, = and grass-fed beef have low saturated fats. But make sure to have enough to help support testosterone production. That in turn will help build your muscle.

Maintaining normal testosterone is important. Low levels can increase irritability, depression, inability to concentrate, and low sex drive.⁹

You can have healthy levels of testosterone and lose weight. No needles or hormone replacement needed. Just remember… It’s all about balance. Once you find that, watch your weight plummet and your muscle and testosterone surge.

Editor’s Note: Testosterone levels decline about 1% a year after age 30. This is just one more symptom of what we call “Male Aging Syndrome.” Most men think problems like lack of energy or libido are a natural consequence of getting older… when it may actually be an easy to fix chemical imbalance! See the four ways you can break free of Male Aging Syndrome here.

References:¹http://www.medicinenet.com/low_testosterone/article.htm
²http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/Fertility-friendly-lifestyle-choices.htm
³http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6298507
⁴http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15741266
⁵http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2697481
⁶http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/fats-full-story/
⁷http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/muscle_building/Muscles_Need_More_than_Protein.php
⁸http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_126704.html
⁹http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/tutorials/lowtestosterone/ur189102.pdf

http://naturalhealthdossier.com/2012/09/just-one-more-reason-dieting-is-bad-for-you/

Eggs Improve Your Cholesterol

Easy Health Options Staff | Apr 26, 2012 | Comments 6

For years, doctors have been telling their patients to give up eggs because eggs contain cholesterol. They believed that eating this source of cholesterol would be dangerous for heart health.

The truth of that advice has now been cracked like an eggshell. When researchers at the University of Connecticut fed people three eggs a day for three months (and restricted their sugar and carbohydrate consumption), they found that their blood cholesterol improved. Their HDL measures showed significantly greater increases in the number and size of HDL particles. HDL (good cholesterol) scavenges for fat throughout the bloodstream and returns it to the liver, making it less likely that fatty deposits will build up in the blood vessels and lead to atherosclerosis.

The study was presented at Experimental Biology (EB) 2012 in San Diego

http://www.easyhealthoptions.com/alternative-medicine/eggs-improve-your-cholesterol/

Don’t Believe The Cholesterol Lies

Bob Livingston | May 10, 2012 | Comments 13

The cholesterol myth is a monument to the lies, deceit and fraud of the pharmaceutical companies and the government. The cholesterol myth proves that super fortunes can be built on the sale of products based on medical myths.

The best doctors I know will write a prescription instantly for a statin drug, i.e., a drug to lower cholesterol. This has absolutely nothing to do with medicine or the treatment of disease. It is commerce, pure and simple. It is crime, incorporated.

The cholesterol myth is so well established and so completely accepted by doctors that there is almost no inquiry into this crime of commerce.

Medical Propaganda

Organized propaganda can force-feed the public mind any myth imaginable. Crime becomes legitimate after it is generally accepted by the people. And the longer a crime has been accepted as legitimate or legal, the harder it is to challenge.

Cholesterol drugs are bad for human health. They destroy CoQ10. They complicate general health in many ways. They cost the American people billions of dollars annually.

The cholesterol myth is based on the Lipid Hypothesis created by Ancel Keys in the 1950s. The Lipid Hypothesis is a theory that saturated animal fats and cholesterol in our food raise cholesterol levels in the blood. The theory suggests that high blood cholesterol causes atherosclerosis leading to obstruction of blood vessels of the heart.

The pharmaceutical companies saw trillions of dollars of profits. Who can say that the pharmaceutical firms didn’t create the flawed studies that led to the cholesterol profit empire we have today? You may call it a “science” of fraud. Recent court cases have proven the pharmaceutical companies do just that.

Subscribing to the cholesterol myth, Americans cut back on good omega-3 fats and started consuming more vegetable oils and margarine, substituting them for coconut oil and animal fat that did our ancestors so well.

Well, as profits skyrocketed, deaths from heart disease and cancer did, too.

What Is Cholesterol?

Cholesterol is actually a heavyweight alcohol with a hormone-like structure that behaves like a fat in that it is insoluble in water and in blood. Cholesterol has a coating compound called a lipoprotein that allows it to be carried in the blood.

Cholesterol plays a critical role in body chemistry. We need cholesterol. To suppress it with cholesterol drugs is to create degenerative disease.

The Benefits Of Cholesterol

From the book Eat Fat, Lose Fat by Mary Enig and Sally Fallon:

• Your body uses cholesterol to make hormones that help you deal with stress and protect against heart disease and cancer.
• Your body needs cholesterol to make all the sex hormones, including androgen, testosterone, estrogen, progesterone and DHEA.
• Your body uses cholesterol to make vitamin D, vital for the bones and nervous system, proper growth, mineral metabolism, muscle tone, insulin production, reproduction, and immune system function.
• Bile salts are made from cholesterol. Bile is vital for digestion and the assimilation of dietary fats.
• Cholesterol acts as an antioxidant, protecting us against free radical damage that leads to heart disease and cancer.
• Cholesterol is needed for proper function of serotonin receptors in the brain. Since serotonin is the body’s natural “feel good” chemical, it’s not surprising that low cholesterol levels have been linked to aggressive and violent behavior, depression, and suicidal tendencies.
• Mother’s milk is especially rich in cholesterol and contains a special enzyme that helps the baby utilize this nutrient. Babies and children need cholesterol-rich foods throughout their growing years to ensure proper development of the brain and nervous system.
• Dietary cholesterol plays an important role in maintaining the health of the intestinal wall. This is why low-cholesterol vegetarian diets can lead to leaky gut syndrome and other intestinal disorders.
• Finally, the body uses cholesterol to repair damaged cells. This means that higher cholesterol levels are actually beneficial. Meyer Texon, M.D., a well-known pathologist at New York University Medical Center, points out that indicting fat and cholesterol for hardening the arteries is like accusing white blood cells of causing infection, rather than helping the immune system to address it.

Fact: Deaths from heart disease and all other causes increased 11 percent for each 1 percent drop in cholesterol, according to a 30-year follow-up of the famous Framingham Study.

Do the American people know this? No, because the American Heart Association and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute published in the journal Circulation the reverse of the above fact. Yes, believe it or not!

And the fact is that for women low cholesterol is more dangerous than high cholesterol. Another fact is that when people maintain low levels of cholesterol in their blood over long periods of time with statin drugs, their risk of death from all causes increase.

http://www.easyhealthoptions.com/alternative-medicine/dont-believe-the-cholesterol-lies/

Debunking The Cholesterol Myth

Dr. Michael Cutler | Apr 16, 2012 | Comments 11

It’s time to finally quit believing the cholesterol-heart disease theory. Although doctors and their patients embrace the idea that cholesterol needs correction and is a leading cause of cardiovascular disease, there’s no reason to believe it. Cholesterol actually contributes to balanced hormones and a healthy sex life.

Cholesterol Does Not Cause Atherosclerosis

Unfortunately, the cholesterol-heart disease hypothesis is still the major dogma of modern medicine today. This is the theory that abnormally high cholesterol levels cause atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and heart disease. The theory has been touted simply for large financial gains and believed by the masses. It originated in the late 1940s and early 1950s due to political pressure in the medical industry to find a cause for coronary artery disease (CAD), which was becoming the No. 1 killer of Americans. The mild correlation made between high cholesterol and CAD in middle-aged men was enough to form the basis of a public campaign.

The problem is that no one ever proved causation, but only a correlation. Scientifically speaking, you could have argued that CAD causes high cholesterol. But that would have been equally wrong.

Neglected Report

You probably never heard about the 1964 report by the famous heart surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey, in Houston. He and his colleagues studied 1,700 surgical patients only to find no correlation between their blood cholesterol levels and the extent of CAD. This was reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association. [1] This is consistent with the fact that about 50 percent of people hospitalized for heart attacks or undergoing CABG (coronary artery by-bass graft) surgery have normal cholesterol levels.

Furthermore, in 1992, Dr. William P. Castelli, former director of the Framingham Study, reported a similar discovery: “…in Framingham, Mass., the more saturated fat one ate, the more cholesterol one ate, the more calories one ate, the lower the person’s serum cholesterol…We found that the people who ate the most cholesterol, ate the most saturated fat, ate the most calories, weighed the least, and were the most physically active.” [2] This is the exact opposite of what people are being told. This does not mean that high consumption of animal meat is going to lower your heart disease risk, because animal meat in high amounts triggers inflammatory processes, while consuming fresh fruits and vegetables and raw foods lowers inflammation.

Powerful Myth

Yet the commercial effect of the cholesterol myth grew tremendously. Low-cholesterol foods, testing for blood cholesterol and the multibillion-dollar cholesterol-lowering drug industry became very profitable even without scientific proof of causation. Unfortunately, doctors still prescribe statin drugs to lower cholesterol when there are much better and safer ways to lower CAD risk.

Recently, I attended a seminar by Mark Houston, M.D., M.S., F.A.C.P., F.A.H.A. He teaches the courses on the functional and metabolic management of hypertension, CAD and dyslipidemia for the fellowship training of the American Academy of Anti-aging Medicine (AAAAM). The latest scientific literature clearly shows that knowing your HDL and LDL cholesterol blood levels provides no real information about cardiovascular risk. Indeed, cholesterol is involved in heart health; but the chronic inflammation, immune dysfunction and oxidative stress of the vascular system are the real culprits. Chronic infections and the consumption of inflammatory foods (such as refined sugars and processed grains) are the two main inflammatory triggers for atherosclerosis.

Only the newer, expanded lipid profile and highly sensitive C-reactive protein levels can really give you a measure of cardiovascular disease risk. The expanded profile measures the LDL particle size and number, the HDL particle size and number, and other lipoprotein subclasses — all measures of inflammation.

Therefore, LDL cholesterol is bad only if it is modified to an oxidized form. That begs the question: How do cholesterol-lowering (statin) drugs lower heart disease risk? Well, it turns out that their effectiveness is due to their anti-inflammatory effects and not cholesterol-lowering effects. Here are some classic scientific studies that help demonstrate this.

Significant Reductions

In The Heart Protection Study [3] reported in the Lancet in 2011, researchers followed 20,536 patients treated with the statin drug simvastatin. They found a significant reduction in heart attacks independent of the baseline blood level of C-reactive protein and in those who already had a low LDL cholesterol level.

A whole set of studies from peer-reviewed journals [4] [5] [6] show that consuming one to seven eggs per week (lots of cholesterol) does not increase the risk of dying from CVD or stroke in men or women. Better yet, there was a trend for men with higher egg consumption to have even a lower rate of stroke. In people with pre-existing obesity, diabetes or insulin resistance, there were a higher number of CAD deaths than normal in comparison with the total population.

A 2009 scientific article [7] published in Current Atherosclerosis Reports from the Framingham Heart Study, the Lipid Research Clinics Study and Male Health Professionals Study all showed that dietary cholesterol has little to no effect on the risk for CAD. However, eating foods with lots of trans-fatty acids (hydrogenated oils) significantly increases the risk for CAD; substitution of saturated fat with refined carbohydrates increases CAD; and very low saturated fat actually increases the risk for hemorrhagic stroke.

Negligible Impact

Earlier in 2001, the British Medical Journal reported a systemic review [8] of 27 randomized clinical controlled trials with a total of 3,902 people who reduced or modified their dietary fat intake for longer than two years, looking at the effect this had on deaths from CAD. The effect was almost negligible: mortality reduced a mere 2 percent!

Now, consider the fact that cholesterol conveys health benefits. In the new specialty of anti-aging and hormone-balancing medicine, we know that low cholesterol in the diet is largely to blame for insufficient production of steroid hormones. See the accompanying metabolic pathway chart. The hormones in red are the ones we measure and replace with supplementation to reverse a large number of illness signs and symptoms.



Source: Michael Cutler’s notes from Fellowship training by AAAAM


You must have sufficient cholesterol in your diet to make sufficient amounts of these critically important hormones: progesterone, aldosterone, cortisol, DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone), testosterone and the estrogens. As you can see, they all are manufactured from cholesterol, which you must get from your diet. I‘ll further discuss these hormones and hormone balancing in my next article.

To your best health,
Michael Cutler, M.D.
Easy Health Options

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[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14172263

[2] http://www.survivediabetes.com/Essay/On%20the%20possibility%20of%20a%20nut.html

[3] http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)62174-5/abstract

[4] http://www.springerlink.com/content/y0864165p27515w5/

[5] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10479227

[6] http://www.bmj.com/content/300/6727/771

[7] http://pubget.com/paper/19852882

[8] http://www.bmj.com/content/322/7289/757.full

http://www.easyhealthoptions.com/alternative-medicine/debunking-the-cholesterol-myth/