What You Need to Know About Cholesterol
Over at Mark's Daily Apple is an excellent summary of what cholesterol is, why it is necessary and vital to our health, and what the real marker to heart disease is. I recommend reading it in it's entirety, but I've highlighted a few major points below.
Cholesterol is a natural substance made by our bodies and is ingested as part of foods such as animal meats and (to a lesser degree) vegetables. It is found in every cell and in blood plasma and it has many roles such as, "insulating neurons, building and maintaining cellular walls, metabolizing fat soluble vitamins, producing bile, and kick-starting the body’s synthesis of many hormones, including the sex hormones."
Elevated cholesterol levels occur in response to high carbohydrate diets (not diets high in saturated fat as you have been lead to believe) and is the body's protection against inflammation.
" the smaller, dense LDL particles are the ones believed to be most involved in the process of inflammation that begins the atherosclerosis cascade. And wouldn't’t you know it, but it’s a diet high in simple carbs that most readily promotes the formation of these small LDL particles!...A high triglyceride level, which is unequivocally fueled by a high carb diet, is very often a marker for other problems in the body, particularly insulin resistance (and accompanying risk of diabetes) as well as inflammation (with its risk of heart disease). High levels are often seen with low HDL cholesterol. Once again, the high carb diet wreaks havoc."
Here's the jist of cholesterol's irreplaceable role in protecting our cells from inflammation: "In fact, what happens is that in response to an inflammatory situation, the body uses cholesterol as a “band-aid” to temporarily cover any lesions in the arterial wall. In the event the inflammation is resolved, the band-aid goes away and repair takes place. No harm, no foul. Unfortunately, in most cases, the inflammation proceeds, the cholesterol plaque is eventually acted on by macrophages and is oxidized to a point at which it takes up more space in the artery, slows arterial flow and eventually can break loose to form a clot. And all this time the cholesterol was just trying to be the good guy! Blaming cholesterol for all this is like blaming a cut finger on all the band-aids you have lying around your house."
I love to point out people who use the excuse of their elevated cholesterol being their genes; why that is ridiculous, a cop-out, a blatant excuse presented by Big Pharma to justify peddling more drugs. In reality, true hereditarily high cholesterol (hypercholesterolaemia) is extremely rare and effects only about 1 in 500 people. In other words, your high cholesterol is more likely due to learned behaviors of diet andexercise laziness as passed on from your family and is not genetic.
Cholesterol is not the problem, inflammation is, and it's inflammation that the docs. should be testing for. Unfortunately, those tests are not cost effective and convenient (nor do they support Big Pharma) to run. You have to ask for them, suffer a heart attack, or be diagnosed with a serious disease to get these tests.
In summary, "Substantially “elevated” cholesterol, low HDL or high LDL might be reason to give you pause, but not for the reason you might think. The number can tell you that something is amiss, but they’re a symptom of the larger concern rather than the main issue itself. Cholesterol profile can be impacted by other conditions such as hypothyroidism, untreated diabetes or pre-diabetes, pregnancy (surprise!), lactation, stress, liver conditions, heart disease (symptom, not cause of), etc. Talk to you doctor about what your numbers mean in the grand scheme of your health. And see if you can get a read on other markers, like C-reactive protein (an inflammatory indicator) and those small particle LDL numbers."
Check out Mark's Top 10 Natural Ways to Reduce Inflammation here. Most of it is common sense, like choosing the most attractive and colorful fruits and veggies, adding Omega - 3 fatty acids to our daily supplements, spicing up meals with herbs and spices, avoiding simple carbs., exercising daily, staying away from stinky pollution, and getting plenty of zzz's.
Cholesterol is a natural substance made by our bodies and is ingested as part of foods such as animal meats and (to a lesser degree) vegetables. It is found in every cell and in blood plasma and it has many roles such as, "insulating neurons, building and maintaining cellular walls, metabolizing fat soluble vitamins, producing bile, and kick-starting the body’s synthesis of many hormones, including the sex hormones."
Elevated cholesterol levels occur in response to high carbohydrate diets (not diets high in saturated fat as you have been lead to believe) and is the body's protection against inflammation.
" the smaller, dense LDL particles are the ones believed to be most involved in the process of inflammation that begins the atherosclerosis cascade. And wouldn't’t you know it, but it’s a diet high in simple carbs that most readily promotes the formation of these small LDL particles!...A high triglyceride level, which is unequivocally fueled by a high carb diet, is very often a marker for other problems in the body, particularly insulin resistance (and accompanying risk of diabetes) as well as inflammation (with its risk of heart disease). High levels are often seen with low HDL cholesterol. Once again, the high carb diet wreaks havoc."
Here's the jist of cholesterol's irreplaceable role in protecting our cells from inflammation: "In fact, what happens is that in response to an inflammatory situation, the body uses cholesterol as a “band-aid” to temporarily cover any lesions in the arterial wall. In the event the inflammation is resolved, the band-aid goes away and repair takes place. No harm, no foul. Unfortunately, in most cases, the inflammation proceeds, the cholesterol plaque is eventually acted on by macrophages and is oxidized to a point at which it takes up more space in the artery, slows arterial flow and eventually can break loose to form a clot. And all this time the cholesterol was just trying to be the good guy! Blaming cholesterol for all this is like blaming a cut finger on all the band-aids you have lying around your house."
I love to point out people who use the excuse of their elevated cholesterol being their genes; why that is ridiculous, a cop-out, a blatant excuse presented by Big Pharma to justify peddling more drugs. In reality, true hereditarily high cholesterol (hypercholesterolaemia) is extremely rare and effects only about 1 in 500 people. In other words, your high cholesterol is more likely due to learned behaviors of diet and
Cholesterol is not the problem, inflammation is, and it's inflammation that the docs. should be testing for. Unfortunately, those tests are not cost effective and convenient (nor do they support Big Pharma) to run. You have to ask for them, suffer a heart attack, or be diagnosed with a serious disease to get these tests.
In summary, "Substantially “elevated” cholesterol, low HDL or high LDL might be reason to give you pause, but not for the reason you might think. The number can tell you that something is amiss, but they’re a symptom of the larger concern rather than the main issue itself. Cholesterol profile can be impacted by other conditions such as hypothyroidism, untreated diabetes or pre-diabetes, pregnancy (surprise!), lactation, stress, liver conditions, heart disease (symptom, not cause of), etc. Talk to you doctor about what your numbers mean in the grand scheme of your health. And see if you can get a read on other markers, like C-reactive protein (an inflammatory indicator) and those small particle LDL numbers."
Check out Mark's Top 10 Natural Ways to Reduce Inflammation here. Most of it is common sense, like choosing the most attractive and colorful fruits and veggies, adding Omega - 3 fatty acids to our daily supplements, spicing up meals with herbs and spices, avoiding simple carbs., exercising daily, staying away from stinky pollution, and getting plenty of zzz's.
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