'There's some serious confusion about cholesterol, and whether high cholesterol levels are responsible for heart disease. Chris Masterjohn, who recently received his PhD in nutritional sciences from the University of Connecticut, has published five peer-reviewed papers on vitamins and supplementation, and he's currently researching fat-soluble supplements – A, D, and K – at the University of Illinois. (Please note that the opinions expressed here represent Dr. Masterjohn's own positions, and may not represent the position of the University of Illinois.)
He also maintains a blog, The Daily Lipid1, and his website, Cholesterol-And-Health.com2, which are dedicated to the issue of cholesterol. He's also active with the Weston A. Price Foundation.'
'Most of us believe that to lose weight we should avoid cholesterol in food. But is that healthy for the body? Is there really any such thing as bad cholesterol? We strongly believe that egg is bad for health and increases cholesterol levels, but is it? Decoding cholesterol is important in this day and age when information can be misconstrued. We reveal cholesterol myths that are outdated and should not be 'followed.'' Read more...
'However, the idea that there are "bad" and "good" blood lipids that contribute to heart disease is known as the "lipid hypothesis," or "cholesterol myth." The hypothesis is subject to much criticism and has been challenged often. The underlying causes of cardiovascular disease are more likely related to inflammation and other factors. Riechman agrees that the common attitude to cholesterol is wrong. He prefers to focus on the very useful purpose that LDL serves. Without cholesterol, he points out, we would die. In fact, studies in the elderly have shown that those with the lowest levels of cholesterol are at highest risk of death from all causes.' Read more...
'You've heard for decades about the dangers of high cholesterol, but did you know that LOW cholesterol can lead to violence towards self and other, and has been linked to premature aging, death and other adverse health effects? In a world gone mad with anti-cholesterol anxiety, and where gobbling down pharmaceuticals designed to poison the body into no longer synthesizing it is somehow considered sane behavior, it is refreshing to look at some of the research on the health benefits of cholesterol, or conversely, the dangers of low cholesterol.' Read more...
Why Limiting Dietary Cholesterol May Harm Your Health
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 problems.
For example, 25 percent of the cholesterol in your body is in your brain, even though your brain is only two percent of your body's weight. The cholesterol is absolutely essential for neuron transport, so it's easy to understand why lack of cholesterol can negatively affect your brain function. But impaired memory and dementia are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to low cholesterol's impact on your brain. Having too little of this beneficial compound also:
'The people with the highest cholesterol live the longest. It's a point that's generally ignored in modern medicine, but it is a fact. A huge industry in statins constantly promulgates the opposite notion, and has done such a good job that doctors routinely have people's cholesterol levels checked on a regular basis. They don't question the ever-lowering so-called healthy cholesterol levels, or the variations continually tacked on to the theory: It isn't total cholesterol that matters, it's HDL that counts. Well, no, actually it's the ratio of HDL to LDL cholesterol. Hmmm...the latest research shows that it's oxidized LDL that does the harm.
More About: Cholesterol doesn't cause heart disease
'You are all no doubt acquainted with the popular hypothesis on cholesterol and heart disease. It has two parts: first, that eating cholesterol in the diet raises cholesterol levels in the blood; and two, that high cholesterol levels in the blood cause heart disease.
You might be surprised to learn that neither of these statements is true. The first one is relatively easy to dispatch. In the Framingham Heart Study, which is the longest-running and perhaps most significant study on heart disease done to date, it was demonstrated that intake of cholesterol in the diet had absolutely no correlation with heart disease. If you look at the graph below, you’ll see that both men and women with above average intake of cholesterol had nearly identical rates of heart disease as men and women with below average intake of cholesterol.'
The Cholesterol Myth exposed - Dr Malcolm Kendrick speaks about World Health Organisation (WHO) data gathered in their MONI-CA study. MONItoring Trends in CArdiovascular Disease.
Bio:
Dr Malcolm Kendrick (MbChB MRCGP) MD qualified in Aberdeen Scotland. He has worked in family practice for almost twenty years, and learned that treating patients is not like treating textbooks. He has specialized in heart disease and set up the on-line educational website for the European Society of Cardiology.
He is a peer-reviewer for the British Medical Journal, and has written articles on a wide range of subjects from Multiple Sclerosis to Stress and Heart Disease and the health benefits of sunshine. He is a member of the International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (thincs) as he does not believe that a high cholesterol level causes heart disease.
Dangers of Statin Drugs: What You Haven’t Been Told About Popular Cholesterol-Lowering Medicines
'Hypercholesterolemia is the health issue of the 21st century. It is actually an invented disease, a "problem" that emerged when health professionals learned how to measure cholesterol levels in the blood. High cholesterol exhibits no outward signs--unlike other conditions of the blood, such as diabetes or anemia, diseases that manifest telltale symptoms like thirst or weakness--hypercholesterolemia requires the services of a physician to detect its presence. Many people who feel perfectly healthy suffer from high cholesterol--in fact, feeling good is actually a symptom of high cholesterol!'
CoQ10 and Statins: The Vitamin C Connection by Owen R. Fonorow PhD, ND
"We are now in a position to witness the unfolding of the greatest medical tragedy of all time - never before in history has the medical establishment knowingly created a life-threatening nutrient deficiency in millions of otherwise healthy people." - Peter H. Langsjoen, MD
"Ubiquinone (CoQ10) is a popular heart medication that until 2001 was only available by prescription in Japan. The public is hardly aware that an increasingly popular class of cardiovascular drugs called statins (HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors) interferes with the body's synthesis of CoQ10. Top-selling statin drugs, such as Lipito® and Zocor®, earn their makers in excess $20 billion per year. These drugs lower the endogenous production of cholesterol and are often touted as "life-saving" by cardiologists and the media.
The pharmaceutical giant Merck has known for more than 15 years that statin drugs interfere with CoQ10 biosynthesis, leading to low serum levels, which cause muscles to atrophy.[including the heart muscle!]
Are statin drugs really good for us, or are cardiologists mistaken? How can drugs that lower the body's production of CoQ10 benefit heart patients? Are the health benefits attributed to CoQ10 supplementation hype, or are the thinking and the science used by statin drug marketers fundamentally wrong?"
It's Official: No Evidence that Saturated Fat Causes Heart disease
'Many individuals will be familiar with the almost-constant recommendations that come at us with regard to what we should be eating to reduce our risk of heart disease. A central theme in this advice, though not everyone would agree with it, is that the diet should be low in fat and high in carbohydrate. Sometimes, we have further refinement of this message where we are encouraged to eat less ‘saturated’ fat and more ‘polyunsaturated’ fat. Some food manufacturers, for example those who produce margarine and sell it as a ‘healthy’ alternative to butter, have been particularly keen to get it into our heads that a diet rich in polyunsaturated fat and low in saturated fat is the way to keep heart disease at bay. Many doctors and dietitians would agree. But how true is this assertion?'
