Why Cholesterol is Essential for Optimal Health, and the Six Most Important Risk Factors of Heart Disease

By Dr. Mercola

'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.'

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Stop Believing The Myths About Cholesterol

'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 We reveal cholesterol myths that are outdated and should not be 'followed.''


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There Is Only One Type of Cholesterol: Here’s Why

We keep hearing about different types of cholesterol. It’s all nonsense. There’s only one cholesterol molecule, so there’s only one type of cholesterol. What started this nonsense of types of cholesterol?

'Just how many types of cholesterol are there? The more we’re indoctrinated with the cholesterol-as-poison myth, the more types they seem to find. HDL. LDL. VLDL. And those pesky triglycerides: Are they a type of cholesterol? Here’s the truth:

None of them are cholesterol, and there is only one type of cholesterol! That’s right. HDL, LDL, and VLDL aren’t cholesterol. And cholesterol isn’t a fat.

All that nonsense bandied about to make you fearful that your cholesterol levels are too high … well, unless they’re the “right type” of cholesterol … or maybe it’s making sure they’re at the right balance … or whatever the latest fad among doctors happens to be … It’s all pure and utter nonsense. It’s a cooked up jamboree of confusion, designed to put not only you, but also your doctor, off balance and disoriented so you’ll buy into the idea that you really must take their poisons … uh, drugs, or you could die tomorrow.'

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Vitamin D ‘Fails’ to Lower Cholesterol: So?

A completely useless, frankly stupid, study shows that Vitamin D ‘fails’ to lower cholesterol – but the idea that it would lower cholesterol never made sense in the first place, which the researchers should have known.

'Cholesterol is required to manufacture Vitamin D. So, if Vitamin D is provided in a pill form, why would anyone expect cholesterol levels to be affected? It makes no sense. In fact, the study managed to demonstrate exactly what one would expect: Taking Vitamin D has no discernible effect on cholesterol levels, whether your concern is LDL, HDL, or triglycerides (which aren’t cholesterol, anyway).

Though this pseudo study would have you believe that Vitamin D is useless, the truth is completely different. In fact, people with low levels of D have 77% more heart disease than those who have only moderate levels. That should be the real eye-opener for these researchers. In combination with their useless study, it demonstrates the fact that Vitamin D improves heart health without having any effect on cholesterol.'

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How LOW Cholesterol Can Harm Your Health

'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.'


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The Straight Dope on Cholesterol: 10 Things You Need to Know – Part 1

'No summary of this length can begin to fully address a topic as comprehensive as cholesterol metabolism and the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. In fact, those of us who challenge conventional wisdom often find ourselves needing to do exactly what Frederic Bastiat suggested:

“We must admit that our opponents in this argument have a marked advantage over us. They need only a few words to set forth a half-truth; whereas, in order to show that it is a half-truth, we have to resort to long and arid dissertations.”

So, at the risk of trying to minimize the “long and arid” part of this process, below are the 10 things you need to know to be the judge – for yourself – if the conventional advice about cholesterol is correct.'

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The Straight Dope on Cholesterol: 10 Things You Need to Know – Part 2

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High Intake of Cholesterol Shown to Actually Repair Damaged Brains

'Including high-cholesterol foods as part of a healthy diet may not be the poor dietary choice we have all been told it is, suggests a new study published in the journal Nature Medicine. It turns out that cholesterol actually helps increase production of an important component of the nervous system that facilitates proper nerve cell communication, and prevents the onset of brain diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease.'


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Statins Prevent Vitamin D Formation, Causing Muscle Pain & Worse

'The chutzpah of pharmaceutical science and medical practice in presuming to control the body’s processes, without any consideration for adverse effects that can readily be predicted—such as known disorders related to inadequate Vitamin D and CoQ10—needs to come to an end.'

'Inadequate Vitamin D causes muscle pain. The purpose of statin drugs is to lower cholesterol. Is there a connection between the muscle pain that results from statins and inadequate Vitamin D?

There can, in fact, be little doubt. The connection is obvious if you know one fact: Cholesterol is required to make Vitamin D. Therefore, anyone taking statins can be expected to have a deficiency in it.

Let’s take a look at the primary conditions associated with inadequate Vitamin D and adverse effects of statin drugs:'

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The cholesterol - heart disease scam: How the medical-industrial complex is raking in billions at our expense

 

'Despite the fact that this research, contradicting the orthodox hypothesis, has been published in prestigious journals for decades, and despite the complete failure of the massive low-fat, anti-cholesterol campaign to lower the overall incidence of CHD, the cholesterol/saturated fat theory of CHD enjoys almost unanimous acceptance among health authorities. 

And yet the amount of cholesterol formed by the liver is controlled according to the needs of the body. 

If dietary cholesterol is increased, a healthy liver responds by making less cholesterol. However, if the cholesterol in the diet is decreased, the liver makes more. In this way the body regulates how much cholesterol is produced for its needs.'

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I Have High Cholesterol, and I Don't Care (Part One)

I Have High Cholesterol, and I Don't Care (Part I) from The Healthy Skeptic on Vimeo.

I Have High Cholesterol, and I Don't Care (Part II) from The Healthy Skeptic on Vimeo.

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