After all the hype regarding fat and cholesterol being the demons in our diet for the last 40 years it is refreshing to see the truth finally come out.
That Cholesterol and Fat in our diet are essential and that they are relatively harmless.
The book I recommend for you to read the rest of this story is: The Great Cholesterol Myth by: Drs. Jonny Bowden, Ph.D. and Stephen Sinatra, M.D. I’m going to give you the short of it!
Am I going out on a limb with that crazy fringe of people that just want to get a rise out of folks and create controversy? On the contrary, the research proves over and over again that eating cholesterol and fat does not increase your chance of having a heart attack.
Yes, you read that correctly. It never did. Oh sure, there has been plenty of studies that try to show the correlation between the two, but they have been manipulated, data have been eliminated, and the inconvenient facts that proved otherwise or called into question a direct correlation were simply ignored.
Yes, there can be bad science out there. You see, it is all a question of money. Cholesterol lowering medication is a $30 billion a year industry!
So, what does actually cause heart disease you ask!? There are 4 big players in increasing your chances of heart disease and frankly they have been known about for quite some time.
Causes of Heart Disease are:
- Inflammation
- Sugar Consumption
- Oxidation/Free Radical Damage
- Stress
These players are related and are usually found together. They are also all controllable. As you probably have guessed, diet is the most important factor, not a cholesterol drug deficiency.
Stress can be out of our control sometimes, but we can feed our body nutrition that helps us deal with it better so it has less damaging effects. There are many techniques we can use to help us deal with our stresses in life.
So, what does cholesterol do for us? Actually, most of the cholesterol circulating in our blood doesn’t come from our diet. Our liver produces most of it for the vital functions cholesterol performs.
It helps us digest fats by making bile in the gall bladder, it is a major component of our cell membranes, it is the building block of our sex hormones, it is used to make vitamin D, it actually detoxifies the toxic products produced by harmful bacteria and helps us fight off infections, it is a major component of our brains and nerves insulating the electrical connections of both.
Do any of these sound important?
In fact, the lower your cholesterol the greater the chance of you dying from any cause.
Actually, you can tell the functions of cholesterol by looking at the side effects of cholesterol lowering drugs, namely statins.
Side Effects of Cholesterol Medication are:
Loss of sex drive/sexual dysfunction
Reoccurring infections
Memory Loss
Low Vitamin D Levels
Depression
Fatigue
In fact, it makes you wonder how many new popular drugs on the market are for treating cholesterol drug side effects. If you’re depressed, have lost your libido and find your memory slipping, try getting some fat and cholesterol in your diet! But make sure you’re getting the sugar out of your diet!
Here’s the thing.
Cholesterol does have a role in the plaque or clogging of our arteries. Although, it is not to blame for the plaque. This is a bit like blaming the fireman at the fire. They are involved, but they did not cause it.
See the above list for the real causes of heart disease. This is why most people that have the reopening of their arteries done with arterial stents, have to have it done again. This is even after taking cholesterol lowering drugs or statins.
So you now realize the actual problem was never addressed. Heart disease is a major problem and we as a society need to get better educated on what the real causes are and the fact that we can overcome them on our own. Although change isn’t easy is it?
As I was writing this a gentleman came by and asked me about the book, The Great Cholesterol Myth, because it was sitting in front of my laptop in the coffee shop.
I think people are starting to wake up and realize that they have to take control of their health and not rely on medications or marketing to do it for us.
If you have Heart Disease and/or Stroke that runs in your family, take steps to find out the real risk factors so that you can address them.
This is preferable to being put on a Statin Drug and then thinking that everything is fine. It’s not.
Share with those that you care about.
Cheers and good health, Dr. Bill.