The Cholesterol Myth

The Cholesterol Mythnby Chip EngelmannnnWe all know that there are two types of cholesterol, right? There’s the good cholesterol and the bad cholesterol. The bad one, LDL cholesterol, builds up when you eat fatty foods and gets stuck in your arteries, forming plaque and cutting off your circulation so you get a heart attack and die. The good cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, fights the bad cholesterol. You want the good cholesterol and don’t want the bad cholesterol. If your cholesterol gets too high, you can take your chances on exercise and changing your diet, but that might not work if your genetics are wrong, so you take a drug and live a good life. I know this is true because an actor that plays a doctor on TV told me so, and then other actors dance through flowers or go surfing. nThis cholesterol myth is misleading on so many levels. To unravel the myth, I will break it down into chunks:nn--What is cholesterol? And why do some people think that high cholesterol levels cause heart disease?n--What about HDL and LDL?n--What role do free-radicals play in clogging our arteries?n--Why does cholesterol only stick near the heart and not in the itty bitty capillaries?n–Why is the treatment for high cholesterol dangerous?nnFirst of all, there are no good and bad cholesterols. Cholesterol is cholesterol, period. LDL stands for low density lipoprotein. HDL stands for high density lipoprotein. Lipoproteins are a combination of cholesterol and protein, and they serve an entirely different function than cholesterol does. Cholesterol is a steroid manufactured in the liver and is used in the cellular membrane of every cell in the body. It is also used as part of the body’s inflamation response. nn “Cholesterol is not necessarily the monster we have been led to believe that it is. It helps the liver digest fats and works with protein and lecithin to transport fats through our blood. Not only that, but cholesterol helps manufacture important male and female sex hormones. In addition, cholesterol helps keep skin moist. Cholesterol is so important that if not enough comes from food, the liver manufactures it. It is so essential that, unless it is oxidized, it is produced daily to build the membranes of new cells that must be formed in place of dead and dying cells.” – Gary Null, Ph.D. The Complete Encyclopedia of Natural Healing, p317nnSo how did our medical community correlate cholesterol with heart disease? The key is in the word correlate. Let me give you an example. There is a correlation between the amount of ice cream consumed and death by drowning. As the rate of ice cream consumption goes up, the number of deaths by drowning also goes up. As the amount of ice cream consumed falls, so does the incidence of death by drowning. This is a correlation, not a cause. The cause of both effects, if you haven’t guessed, is the summer heat. nnLikewise, heart disease and cholesterol levels rise at the same time. But just as ice cream does not cause death by drowning, neither does cholesterol cause heart disease. The missing factor is that as our body becomes more insulin and leptin resistant, the liver creates more cholesterol and our chance of heart disease increases. The resistance to these hormones–insulin that helps to regulate blood sugar levels and leptin that helps maintain the body fat balance–is basically the result of repeated over-consumption of processed carbohydrates and refined sugars. In fact, cholesterol levels have very little to do with the intake of dietary fat. This research is decades old news, but we still treat for cholesterol and not insulin/leptin resistance. nnSo what are the LDL and HDL monsters we hear so much about. nnLow density lipoproteins have the job of transporting cholesterol throughout the body to be used in the construction of cells, etc. They are very soft and can squeeze into very tight places throughout the body as every cell in the body needs cholesterol. If there is an excess of cholesterol the low density lipoproteins release the cholesterol into the blood stream. Here it is retrieved by the high density lipoproteins and returned to the liver to be recycled. LDL has receives the “bad” title because it drops off the cholesterol, and HDL receives the “good” title because it takes the cholesterol out of the blood stream. A good balance between the HDL and LDL is 2 to 1.nnBut neither are bad. They are doing their job in the body. The problem is that some cholesterol sticks. nnWhat makes some cholesterol stick and others float around in the blood stream to be retrieved by HDL? The answer is that the one ones that stick have been oxidized or damaged by free radicals. Free radicals are molecules that are capable of pulling hydrogen off of useful molecules in the body, giving them an electrical charge that causes them to bind with other molecules. Some free radicals are produced naturally through exercise or cellular metabolism. The body has natural antioxidants to combat these free radicals. The best known of these antioxidants to restore the cholesterol to its normal unsticky self is Vitamin E. This is why vitamin E has such a good reputation for combating heart disease. nnUnfortunately, many people consume massive amounts of free radicals in the form of fried foods, fatty meat, alcohol, and cigarette smoke. Each free radical is capable of creating 27 generations of free radicals–one creates a second one, those two create four to the 27th generation which could make approximately 250 million damaged molecules. A typical puff of cigarette smoke contains approximately 1 billion free-radicals. Free radical damage to the skin of smokers is easily recognized by the tough leathery appearance. Over consumption of free-radicals can over-power the body’s ability to restore damage, especially if the diet is low in natural anti-oxidants such as vitamin E. The more free radicals we consume, the higher the damage to cholesterol.nnBut there’s another puzzle to solve. If this cholesterol is so sticky, why does it only stick in the arteries around the heart area. Why not all over the body? The answer was found by Dr. Mathias Roth, MD in his research at the Linus Pauling Institute. nnScurvy is a condition that exists in the body when insufficient Vitamin C is present. Among other things, a symptom of scurvy is that the walls in the blood vessels break down and the victim bleeds to death internally. The National Science Federation has determined that 60 mg of Vitamin C per day will prevent scurvy and that is where the RDA/RDI for Vitamin C is set. But it is possible for you to have symptoms of Vitamin C deficiency with out dying. Instead of your blood vessels breaking down completely, tiny cracks or micro-fissures are formed. Of course, they are most apt to occur in the blood vessels where there is the most pressure, next to the heart. When the blood vessels break down, the body creates an inflamation response. As mentioned before, cholesterol plays a role in the inflamation response. nnFirst on the scene is fibrin, a blood protein involved in the clotting process. The fibrin fills in the cracks. Fibrin is like barbed wire in that everything sticks to it, especially collagen proteins and cholesterol. The crack is repaired. According to Dr. Rath, if the body gets 800 mg of Vitamin C in the diet daily, the cracks don’t form. To rephrase Dr. Rath, if there are no cracks, there’s nothing for the cholesterol to stick to. nnThe body is pretty cool in that it does not make anything it can’t use. We get into problems, though when we feed the body foods high in free-radicals. If the free-radical damaged cholesterol is part of the plaque that fills in the crack, it attracts other free-radical damaged cholesterol and the plaque begins to build. Vitamin E and other antioxidants not only remove the damage to the free-radical damage in the blood stream, they also neutralize the free radical damage in the plaque. In addition, if the diet contains enough Vitamin C and lecithin, the body can remove the excess cholesterol plaque and restore flow to the arteries.nnLet’s take a look at the Allopathic approach, lowering cholesterol. Assuming that we really want to lower cholesterol, the most popular approach is treatment with statin drugs. One of the side effects is that it damages muscle tissue...nnAt this point some of you might be thinking, “Wait a minute, isn’t the heart a muscle?” nnI never said this approach made sense. Dr. Don Rosendale, MD put it this way: nn “Using the same conventional medical thinking that is being used for cholesterol would lead one to believe that doctors should reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease by taking out everybody's brain.” –“Cholesterol is not the Cause of Heart Disease” nnContinuing: Statin drugs work by inhibiting an enzyme that is used in the production of cholesterol. Coincidently, that same enzyme is used in the production of Co Q-10. In other words, statin drugs inhibit the production of Co Q-10. Coenzyme Q-10, is an enzyme that is a catalyst in the production of energy at the cellular level. An organ that is constantly in need of energy is, of course, the heart which never stops beating. Dr. Stephen Sinatra, MD, a cardiovascular surgeon, in his book, The Co Q-10 Phenomenon, says that the typical heart attack victim has an 80% deficiency of Co Q-10. nnThe question is then, don’t drug companies know this? While I don’t claim to be a mind reader, the fact is that several statin drugs at one time were sold with Co Q-10 in them. Co Q-10 has since been removed. nnIt seems prudent then that if you were at risk for heart disease that you might consider changing your diet such that you had adequate levels of Vitamins C and E, lecithin, and fiber (shown to help the body regulate cholesterol level) and to decrease the consumption of fats (free radicals) and processed carbohydrates (shown to increase the production of cholesterol by creating insulin resistance).nnCopyright 2006 nChip Engelmannn nHere’s a multiple choice bonus question. nnThe Massachusetts Department of Health determined that the number one factor that determines whether of not a person survives their first heart attack is________.nnA) high cholesterolnB) high triglyceridesnC) High homocysteine levelsnD) obesitynE) job dissatisfaction. nF) Diet high in processed carbohydrates and fats.nnThe answer is E.