Once and for all... Dietary cholesterol is not bad for you

[blinkwatt]

Do the test. Try the Anabolic Diet. It's high in saturated fat (thus cholesterol). Do a blood test before/after.

Instead of believing what studies, doctors,... say: experiment with your own body. It's only food, you're not going to die from it. Try a high saturated fat diet like the Anabolic Diet, with abscence of carbs. And look your cholesterol levels decrease.

I don't beleive what doctors and studies say,I only beleive what I and my friends figure out ourself. I used to test my blood pressure and heart rate at work all the time. I noticed that when I stopped eating 6+ egg yokes a day I went down from the 'pretension' to 'normal' range on my blood pressure.

Actually you can die from food. Food can lead to a heart attack,it's your own choice what you put in you though.

 

[Throttle]

it's a perilous life -- crossing a busy street, driving a car, dating women. all potentially hazardous or even fatal.

however, the evidence is mounting that for most people, the obsession with cutting fat & reducing dietary cholesterol is not only useless, but counterproductive.

why? the average individual then stops eating healthy whole foods (eggs & red meats), and tries to substitute questionable stuff like regular ice cream with low-fat varieties. the low fat varieties have so much sugar that there are just as many calories, except now you're spiking your blood sugar & eating a less sating product. talk about going backwards.

 

[Throttle]

and meanwhile the obession with cutting saturated fat leads us to omega-6 consumption through the roof, and mercury concerns + dwindling fish stock decrease our omega-3 consumption on one side, while industrial agriculture decreases our omega-3 consumption on the other, so our omega-3 & 6 get way out of whack. it's the omega-6 you need to be cutting, not the sat. fat.

 

[Quiksilver]

Dug up this article that essentially covers all bases.

If you're interested in this topic, and don't mind a few pages of reading, then here's an interesting article:

Fats

 

[Throttle]

quik--the only trouble with that version of the article is that it lacks the footnotes.

the original article: http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/skinny.html

this also puts it in its original context, so that readers can explore for themselves the WAP Foundation and its motives.

 

[spesmilitis]

speaking of omega-3's. Are their any benifits to eating the fish itselt? Or is the supplmental capsules good enough?

 

[Throttle]

real, whole food is nearly always preferable to a supplement, b/c it contains enzymes & nutrients that may cooperate in ways that we don't fully understand.

However, due to methyl mercury, PCBs, and other industrial pollutants that accumulate in fats, there are concerns with eating certain types of fish. The advantage of fish oil supplements is that they can be cleansed of known toxins. With eating fish you have to be more careful. Also, good seafood is typically more expensive per pound and harder to buy fresh for most.

I highly recommend looking into non-farmed fish that are relatively low in pollutants (Alaskan sockeye & silver salmon are my favorites) for consumption several times a week. Since most of us don't live in Alaska, look for sources of "flash-frozen" or "fresh-frozen" and sealed fish, which holds up well for over a month in the freezer. I buy salmon & several other flash-frozen varieties from Trader Joe's. You'll want to do your own research.

Other sources of interest to those trying to bulk up are canned light tuna (generally lower in mercury than 'white' albacore) and canned salmon, because they are cheap & store well. I've found canned sockeye at my local supermarket and its quite good compared to your typical canned salmon.

 

[wolf116]

Yes, it's good for you. http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do;jsessionid=819C2B65F05318F522E20189E1F43AC1.hydra?id=459358

Consider first the issue of cholesterol. More than a third of individuals who have heart attacks have normal cholesterol. If you look at all the studies, you'll find no evidence that lowering cholesterol prolongs life. Disturbingly, there's a consistent and mysterious increase in deaths from other causes when you reduce cholesterol. And, get this, once you drop cholesterol below 180 mg/dl, the death rate increases.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[hope7]

this is huge & confirms that the lipid hypothesis is a total myth: waist size alone accounts for clogged arteries:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/conditions/08/13/heart.potbellies.reut/index.html

I've hearing that saturated fat only increase ldl's and decrease hdl's when they are stored. If its utilized, then it won't to that.

Thoughts?

 

[Throttle]

sounds plausible. even better if you could link to something. but remember that although saturated fat intake has been linked to changes in hdl/ldl levels, and certain levels and ratios of hdl/ldl have been linked to coronary heart disease, there is no study linking intake of saturated fat directly to CHD, apart from Ancel Keys' ridiculously flawed studies over 30 years ago (picking out only the data that helped his case, etc).

 

[hope7]

No link, just discussing with friends.

I also heard that eating saturated fats with refined carbs is a really bad combo. I think it was mentioned by one of the regulars here. If saturated fats aren't bad for you, then why should the refined carb combo be avoided more than other fats (mono and poly).

 

[Throttle]

if i recall correctly WBA is the one who said avoid sat fat & sugars together. but he & i agree you should be avoiding the simple sugars as much as possible anyway, so it's moot, unless your a fanatic for 'foods' like ice cream and cookies.

 

[Throttle]

hiyo! breaking the link between blood serum cholesterol & CHD in clinical trials. big time oops for Merck & Schering -- and they tried to cover up the results, of course:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/business/14cnd-drug.html?hp

the dude at cleveland clinic is shocked only b/c he's bought into the bull just like everyone else. one day we'll wake up and wonder -- what the hell was that all about???

 

[I-tallionStallion]

Excellent article Throttle to post up. I eat 8-12 eggs a day and beef and my mom is always complaining it's toooooooooo much and somehow i'm going to die. Or my sister saying 3-5 whey shakes a day is going to kill me. What bull!!! I'm sick and tired of all these health/fitness myths floating around. So many people think they know what is right with things just cause they heard it somewhere, they don't challenge it or read into it.

For people of this board who didn't know or read this...i say.........BUMP

 

[Throttle]

even the NY Times can read the writing on the wall...or at least are now willing to quote people who can:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/business/17drug.html

Isn't it a sad statement that "Cholesterol as a Danger Has Skeptics" is a newsworthy headline? Think about it for a second.

 

[Throttle]

and BusinessWeek, an even longer & more skeptical story...

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_04/b4068052092994.htm

(key statement on the last page: one researcher says all evidence points to LDL levels being irrelevant, another slams him & says he's going to get people killed -- well, read it for yourself)

 

[Throttle]

the scramble is now on to ignore the obvious implications of this latest study (that we really have no idea why statins reduce heart attacks):

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/22/health/22well.html

 

[Bible_Belt]

Throttle, you're seeing what you want to see. That last study is about the effectiveness of one of the drugs not being as good as thought:

The medicine combines Zocor, a cholesterol-lowering statin, with Zetia, a drug that limits cholesterol’s absorption into the body, and the hope was that the combination would make it more effective than either drug standing alone. But last week Vytorin’s makers, Merck and Schering-Plough, announced that in a small study it had done no better than Zocor alone in slowing the growth of arterial plaque, which can lead to heart attacks. There’s nothing particularly alarming about the findings (unless you’re a shareholder, perhaps).

One cholesterol- lowering drug being ineffective is not the same as cholesterol being good for you. I'm not saying that you are correct or incorrect with your assertions, but these studies don't exactly prove you correct.

 

[Throttle]

there are two separate issues, that may seem conflated because I've attached them all in this thread:

- does dietary cholesterol affect your levels of ldl, hdl, and triglycerides (the first two corresponding to what are incorrectly but popularly known as 'bad' and 'good cholesterol')?

emphatically, the answer to this is no, and this is the original point I raised in this thread. for most people, dietary cholesterol has little or no impact on hdl, ldl or cholesterol.

the second is:

- does lowering your LDL lower your risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) and heart attacks?

and this study shows that a drug can lower your LDL without improving CHD, heart attack risk, and mortality. This very strongly suggests that lowering your LDL does not actually lower your risk of CHD, heart attack, or death. Instead, there is some other factor, that statins work on, which affects atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and therefore CHD & all the rest. Entire industries have sprung up around CHD and 'cholesterol' and they're not going to go down without a fight.

a third question is whether saturated fat contributes to higher LDL and thus CHD. I've decided that even if it does contribute to a higher LDL, it does not contribute to CHD -- so long as you don't add bodyfat to your waist, and I'm eating that way as a self-experiment.

 

[Bible_Belt]

- does dietary cholesterol affect your levels of ldl, hdl, and triglycerides (the first two corresponding to what are incorrectly but popularly known as 'bad' and 'good cholesterol')?

emphatically, the answer to this is no, and this is the original point I raised in this thread. for most people, dietary cholesterol has little or no impact on hdl, ldl or cholesterol.


The American Heart Association says it does. From what I can gather, you are in the minority on the issue. Again, I'm not saying you're incorrect, don't take offense, just that the establishment and probably most doctors would disagree with you.

We all have choices to make. I was a vegetarian for ten years, mostly vegan for a lot of that. Most people here think that diet is crazy and stupid, but at least I am not fat like all my friends my age. I am still about what I weighed in high school. And I like beer. Now that I am training mma to cage fight, my body is getting beat up in training, and I have started to eat salmon and some seafood. One of these days, I am going to buy some grass-fed beef from the local co-op and cook the first steak I've eaten in about ten years. I could eat beef for every meal, but I am not convinced that it is as healthy as the salmon. I have started eating eggs; I buy the cage-free organic kind. I don't think that a little dietary cholesterol is a bad thing, but if you are making the assertation that it does not matter at all, then that would mean that you could eat McDonald's for every meal, maybe throw away the buns and eat the meat, cheese, and egg, and do this for decades without having an impact on your risk for heart disease? Again, I would like to think that is the case, but it is at the least a bold statement.