“People with high cholesterol can rapidly reduce … their risk of death 22 percent by taking a widely prescribed drug called pravastatin. This is the conclusion of a landmark study presented today at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association.”

As in most drug trials, the benefit of taking pravastatin was reported as relative risk reduction.  What does a 22 percent relative risk reduction mean? Most people reading “22 percent” would conclude that 220 people (out of 1,000) benefited by being in the “treatment” group. As we shall learn, in absolute terms, less than 1 percent benefited.

This study randomized 6,595 Scottish men aged 45–64 years who had “high cholesterol” to either placebo or pravastatin 40 mg/day. After five years, 32 people out of every 1,000 who took pravastatin died; of every 1,000 people who took the placebo, 41 died.

Treatment                                                      Deaths per 1,000 people with high cholesterol

Pravastatin                                                                               32

Placebo                                                                                    41

Absolute risk reduction

For a patient, a better way of looking at study results is absolute risk reduction. In WOSCPS, absolute risk reduction is calculated by taking the number of patients who died without treatment (41) and subtracting the number who died with treatment (32). The difference after 5 years is 9 per 1,000 – the number in the treatment group who presumably benefited by taking the drug for five years.

• The absolute risk reduction was only 0.9 percent – 9 in 1,000 – less than 1 percent!

So how did the researchers turn less than 1 percent into a 22 percent risk reduction?

They took the number of  people in the treatment group who presumably benefited from the drug (9) and divided that number by the number of patients who died without treatment (41):

• 9 divided by 41 = 22 percent – thanks to ingenious statistical wizardry.

Most drug and diet studies are reported in this manner

So, how did the New York Times report the results of the recent so called Mediterranean Diet study (funded by olive oil-producing Spain):

“About 30 percent of heart attacks, strokes and deaths from heart disease can be prevented in people at high risk if they switch to a Mediterranean diet…”

Before you start guzzling olive oil or gorging on hard-to-digest nuts – remember these are medically-generous relative risk statistics. In absolute terms, in a large study of 7,447 people (with at least three risk factors for cardiovascular disease), you get another less than 1 percent result.

Number of Heart Attacks:

olive oil group:  38; nut-eating group:  31; non-Med diet control group:  37

Number of deaths from cardiovascular events:

olive oil group:  26; nut-eating group:  31; non-Med diet control group: 30

Number of Strokes:

olive oil group:  49; nut-eating group: 32; non-Med diet control group:  58.

Number of deaths overall – more people died in the Mediterranean groups:  

olive oil group:  118; nut-eating group:  116; non-Med diet control group:  114

In absolute terms, what is there to report? The study may have succeeded only in changing the way some people died. 

The liver is the largest internal organ – and the largest gland in the body

The General of the Army:

In traditional Chinese Medicine, the liver is “General of the Army,” in charge of overall energy, harmony and strategy. According to Chinese doctors, the body’s smooth flow of energy depends on a healthy liver. Chinese physicians treat elevated blood pressure, depression, and excess weight, in part, by supporting liver function.

There is no substitute for a healthy liver! The liver detoxifies blood and stores blood, especially when we’re resting or sleeping. As Supreme Commander of metabolism, the liver makes and stores sugar (as glycogen), converts excess sugar into fat (triglycerides), and manufactures the lipoproteins (VLDL, LDL & HDL) that move liver-assembled fat and cholesterol throughout the body.

The liver regulates protein synthesis and breakdown. All amino acids absorbed from food in the small intestine are transported to the liver where they are recombined to meet the body’s ongoing protein requirements. Also, the so called nonessential amino acids are produced in the liver as are a wide range of critical hormones and vital immunological substances.

After the skin, the liver is our largest organ (weighing about 3 pounds) and the largest gland in the body. Shaped like a football flattened on one side, the liver has two lobes of unequal size and shape. The liver is located in the upper abdomen under the rib cage on the right side. (The liver’s uppermost hump lies just behind your right nipple.)

Each day the liver makes a quart of bile – a mixture of cholesterol, fluids, and salts. Stored in the gall bladder, bile is an emulsifier necessary for digesting and absorbing fat and fat soluble substances:

• Many toxic substances are eliminated in the bile
• Bile coats our slow-moving feces – protecting us from infection
• The only way cholesterol leaves the body is in the bile (much is recycled back to the liver)
•  sorry Cheerios!

The liver is in charge of detoxification, digestion, assimilation, and a wide variety of biochemical reactions, including blood sugar control. Given its complex duties, the liver is the only organ with a dual blood supply. An overworked liver can be a voracious  “blood hog,” balancing two blood supplies as – minute by minute – three pints of blood reach the liver:

• Oxygenated blood from the heart via the hepatic artery
• Nutrient-rich blood (& toxins) from the stomach, spleen & intestines (portal vein)

These above vessels further divide and eventually empty into the microscopic spaces between rows of liver cells called sinusoids – wherein the mobile, octopus-like Kupffer cells reside – moving about the sinusoidal spaces engulfing dangerous chemicals, bacteria, cancer cells, dead cells, incompletely digested or denatured proteins, parasites, yeasts and a legion of foreign particles. Once the Kupffer cell has its victim ingested, it chews it up with enzymes and destroys it.

If Kupffer cells become overloaded, many different symptoms of poor health may occur. Today, in the U.S., fatty liver disease is epidemic and liver (and pancreatic) cancer are on the rise.

• Up to 25% of Americans have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
• Liver disease is the 4th leading cause of death in the United States for people between the ages of 45 and 54 years.
• Over 5 million Americans have chronic Hepatitis B or Hepatitis C infection.

The liver is the Supreme Commander of metabolism – “General of the Army.”

If you suffer from abdominal bloating, allergies, bad breath, coated tongue, depression, poor digestion, excessive body heat, frequent fatigue, gall bladder disease (inability to tolerate fatty foods), headaches, high blood pressure, irritable bowel syndrome, overweight, skin problems, sleep disturbances, and sugar cravings, you may want to consider a love your liver program.

Liver stress factors to avoid:

Artificial sweeteners, food additives (all 2,000), food colors, pesticides, synthetic chemicals, workshop solvents, many commercial household cleaners, insecticides, sun-blockers (the latter two in combination harmed our Gulf soldiers).

Damaged fats:  Trans fats, partially hydrogenated fats (same thing), margarine, vegetable shortening, excess omega 6 linoleic acid found in commercial vegetable oils (soybean and canola).

Excess alcohol (one drink a day is too much if you have impaired liver function), excess sugar, any High Fructose Corn Syrup, excess easily-digested carbohydrates, and packaged foods containing powdered eggs and milk – and the oxidized cholesterol they should be warning you about.

Synthetic Prescription drugs (especially cholesterol-lowering statins), synthetic hormones, synthetic fat soluble vitamins such as synthetic dl-alpha Vitamin E – found in many cheap one-a-day multiples. Long term use and/or high doses of over-the-counter pain killers

Liver Therapies to investigate:

Artichoke leaves stimulate bile and contain compounds (caffeoylquinic acids) that protect and help regenerate liver function.

Broccoli and other members of the brassica family (cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kale, kholrabi) support the liver’s detoxification enzymes.

Butter and Coconut contain anti-microbial short- and medium-chain saturated fatty acids that go directly to the liver (via the portal vein) for energy and detoxification. Saturated fats protect the liver from the toxic insults of alcohol and medications.

Dandelion root, leaf and flower support blood purification and relieve liver congestion

DHA (found in fatty fish, liver and pastured eggs) reduces inflammation, oxidative stress, fibrosis and liver damage

Eggs (from small producer chickens) provide lecithin, needed fats, and complete protein. (A lack of protein depletes glutathione and impairs the liver’s ability to detoxify)

Milk Thistle contains silymarin, one of the most liver-protective substances known – based on extensive German use – a must for serious liver diseases.

Onions and garlic are rich in sulfur-containing compounds that support the main detox pathway for environmental chemicals and certain drugs and food additives.

Taurine is one of the major nutrients involved in the body’s detoxification of harmful substances and drugs and is a key component of bile.

Tumeric and ginger reduce inflammation

“A stitch in time saves nine.”

Doctors test for liver damage – not impairment. One of the keys to good health and a long life is paying attention to the Supreme Organ of the body – your liver!

“Happiness is said to reside in and emanate from the Liver,” writes Ron Teeguarden -  “http://www.ronsblogworld.com/ – blogging: Chinese Tonic Herbs

It’s 2013 – time to get your blood moving!

1.  Use butter. Stop eating margarine. Butter, especially from pastured cows, is a much-needed daily source of infection-fighting Vitamin A. Margarine has none.

Stop using vegetable shortening. Lard, from outdoor-living pigs, is a much-needed daily source of infection-fighting Vitamin D. Crisco has none.

Together fat soluble Vitamins A & D fight infection as they help our bodies absorb minerals.

 2.  Avoid deep-fried foods unless prepared in heat-and oxidation-resistant more stable saturated fats like coconut, beef tallow or creamy lard.

Most restaurants use chemically unstable, highly processed vegetable oils that – in very small amounts – promote oxidation – cellular damage.

Trans-free or not, most restaurant-prepared French fries contain the truly ‘bad’ fat of mass destruction: damaged omega 6 linoleic acid.

 3.  Eat an orange; don’t drink orange juice.  As the Corn Growers Association crowed about $20 million times, “Sugar is Sugar.”

They’re right:  a 10 oz glass of orange juice contains the sugar of 6 to 8 large oranges – several teaspoons of sugar.

Excess sugars, especially the combination of glucose and fructose – as in white sugar or HFCS – promote sticky traffic jams in the liver – and ultimately fatty liver disease, now increasing even in younger people.

4.  Include fresh eggs for breakfast (unless you are allergic to them). Most of us need 30 grams of protein before noon. Complete protein-rich eggs (7 grams per large egg) provide the building materials needed by your body to build cell membranes and other structures – and provide steady energy all morning long. Sugar can’t do that!

 5.  Avoid dried or powdered eggs and milk found in packaged, processed food products. Dried eggs and milk provide oxidized cholesterol, the only type of cholesterol “They Should Be Warning You About – but don’t.” Choose fresh eggs and whole raw milk from small producers as much as possible; avoid dried, powdered or pasteurized products that promote cellular rusting.

 6.  Stop using commercial vegetable oils, such as canola, soybean, and sunflower. If the genetically modified organisms don’t bother you, the excess omega 6 and the trans fatty acids produced during high temperature, high pressure deodorization should. (Our traditional healthy fats don’t need high heat processing or chemical solvents  like hexane.)

There is no such thing as the average person – we are all genetically and biochemically unique. For optimum function, we each have unique nutritional needs and specific environmental requirements.

7.   Have a glass of water first thing, but remember, there is no one formula for how much water we need daily. As noted by Roger J. Williams, PhD, author of Biochemical Individuality, “We’re more different than alike.”

Food also contains water, and for optimum digestion, most people should restrict water during a meal. Get in the habit of intentionally drinking water – stay hydrated – but don’t overtax your kidneys or follow “one-size-fits-all” advice about much of anything health or medical.

8.  If you supplement with one mineral, make it magnesium.  While I am not in the supplement business, I recommend magnesium-emphasized ConcenTrace Mineral Drops. They provide all minerals in easy-to-absorb ionic form, including 250 mg of magnesium in ½ teaspoon. Simply add to your drinking water. There are other useful magnesium compounds to consider as well; cheap magnesium oxide is not one of them.

 9.   Eat fermented vegetables and old fashioned bone broths. It’s vital to learn about traditional food preparation techniques. Fermented vegetables such as sauerkraut are incredibly good for our gastrointestinal health – home of the immune system. Bone broths are inexpensive to produce mineral-rich elixirs. (Chicken soup from slowly simmering chicken bones is a rich source of antimicrobial monounsaturated palmitoleic acid – eat the skin too.) These are key foods that have promoted good health and longevity throughout the ages.

 10.  Walk – don’t run. If you need a reason to walk, buy a dog. Any veterinarian will tell you dogs need daily exercise. Don’t be a couch potato, but don’t over-exercise; running and extreme exercise can enlarge the heart.  (The number one cause of death among marathoners is heart failure.)

 11.  Eat red meat and juicy fatty pork. Lamb and pastured beef are your best sources of L-Carnitine and zinc, while pork is your best source of Vitamin B-1. Beef, pork and chicken livers provide abundant Vitamin A and all B-Vitamins. These animal foods are nutrient dense – provide complete protein – and when purchased from small producers, contain no hormones or antibiotic residues. Make sure YourPlate doesn’t look like MyPlate.gov!

12.  Need to lose weight (burn fat)? Go to a used bookstore and purchase a copy of Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution or the original Diet Revolution (1972) if you can find one. The Atkins and/or Paleo approach to eating is based on the traditional nutrient-dense foods that kept our ancestors happy and healthy. Learn more about Paleo and Atkins to BURN FAT and stay healthy in 2013.

13.  Learn more about tonic herbs. Learn about traditional foods – and learn more about tonic herbs. As an example, silymarin from milk thistle seeds enhances the metabolism of liver cells and protects the liver from toxic injury. Use it daily for 3 months (or longer) to help repair and rejuvenate the liver. No pharmaceutical drug can do that!

Hawthorn berries, flowers and leaves – when taken over time – nourish the heart and help dilate the coronary arteries. In Germany, hawthorn is widely prescribed as a cardiotonic because European science has confirmed that hawthorn increases the heart’s muscle tone.  Hawthorn extracts (powder or liquid) are even better when used in conjunction with circulation stimulants like cayenne pepper and ginger.

Cayenne and ginger help regulate unwanted blood-clot promoting fibrin – a blood protein that builds up after meals and in excess promotes heart attack and sudden death. While these circulation stimulants clean the blood, milk thistle and hawthorn nourish the liver and heart, respectively.

Remember, “A stitch in time saves nine.”

Box breakfast cereals raise blood sugar fast – requiring the liver to turn the glucose into FAT!

In 1950, medical physicist John Gofman, University of California, published an article in Science pointing out that, as a guide, total cholesterol was “false and highly dangerous” – a poor predictor of heart disease risk.

Using a one-of-a-kind ultra-centrifuge, Gofman identified the various lipoproteins and concluded that fat (triglycerides) carried in the blood by VLDL – not cholesterol – was the reliable predictor of heart disease.

It was carbohydrates, Gofman reported, that elevated VLDL. Only by restricting carbohydrates could VLDL be lowered. According to Gofman, total cholesterol measurements tell us nothing about the status of VLDL and LDL.

Prescribing low fat, high carb diets, he said, would increase heart disease risk for a large percentage of the population. “Neglect of the carbohydrate factor can lead to rather serious consequences,” Gofman wrote in 1958.

According to Gary Taubes in Good Calories, Bad Calories, as early as 1955, Pete Ahrens at Rockefeller University had come to the same conclusion as Gofman. Ahrens had reported that triglycerides shoot up on a low fat diet – and fall on a high fat diet:

 “The percent of fat in the blood rises with the severity of [heart] disease … and is especially related to the quantity of carbohydrate, which is being oxidized, rather than with the fat being administered.”

But measuring triglycerides was more difficult than measuring cholesterol, and the cholesterol bandwagon had already left the station. The National Institutes of Health had committed its resources to three expensive diet heart studies measuring only cholesterol – including funding for Ancel Key’s Seven Countries Study.

According to Gary Taubes, as the federal government sidled up to Ancel Keys’ “low fat equals good health” mantra, “No consideration was given to any alternative hypothesis.”  Gofman subsequently lost interest in lipid research and a bevy of researchers, including Pete Ahrens at Rockefeller University, were simply ignored.

John Gofman, PhD, medical scientist, University of California, Berkeley, warned us decades ago that excess carbohydrates elevate dangerous blood fats: TRIGLYCERIDES

Comparing the different effects of dietary fat and dietary carbohydrate on lipids in our blood:

 High Fat Breakfast – Two eggs fried in two tablespoons of butter

When you eat a fat- and protein-rich breakfast, the fat begins separating from the protein in the stomach and is absorbed as individual molecules inside the intestinal wall. Here the fatty acids are re-packaged into triglycerides (3 fatty acids attached to glycerol) and are loaded onto the mighty chylomicrons – 18-wheelers delivering dietary fat out to the body.

Chylomicrons travel until they have delivered their fatty bounty, shrink and disappear (remnants are picked up by the liver). Because chylomicrons have the specific apoB-48 protein attached, we know that hungry cells quickly snatch up this fat – of dietary origin.

For 2 or 3 hours after our high fat breakfast, we will see elevated chylomicron levels that fall quickly. Chylomicrons – apoB48s – are too small and too few to be measured in blood work and they have no direct effect on liver-made VLDL or LDL.

High Carbohydrate Breakfast – Cup of Cheerio’s, cup of skim milk, washed down with some orange juice

After our high carb breakfast, there is no immediate effect on lipid levels; instead you get an immediate rise in blood sugar and insulin. (The very first bite of Cheerios will send a pulse of insulin into the blood.) Starches and sugars (glucose) are soluble in water so they are readily absorbed into the blood (except fructose which is sent to the liver via the portal vein).

In short order, the high carb breakfast creates a metabolic traffic jam in the liver. The fructose arriving via the portal vein is being converted into fat, and – at the direction of insulin – excess glucose arriving in the blood also must be converted into fat – a triglyceride double whammy!

VLDL production will continue for several hours (8 to 10) after a carb-loaded breakfast. Chronic excess carb intake will trigger elevated triglycerides requiring ever-new fleets of VLDL to haul away the fat – exactly what Gofman and Ahrens (and Dr. Atkins) warned us about.

Fifty years ago, Peter Ahrens called excess fat in the blood:  Carbohydrate-induced lipemia. Today, doctors are grappling with the same set of symptoms, now referred to as Metabolic Syndrome, affecting 25 percent of the population, including – for the first time – plenty of teenage children:

• Elevated Triglycerides (TG)
• Elevated VLDL
• depressed HDL reverse transport
• sharp increase in number of small, dense oxidized LDL particles
• increased risk of heart disease.

The history of the Diet Heart hypothesis is riddled with scientific missteps and even outright fraud. If you agree that low fat has failed the test of time, please pass this article on.  Thank you!

Additional stories about cholesterol and lipids:

• The Essential Nature of Cholesterol
• Why Dr. Atkins was right – 40 years ago!

Atkins’ 1972 Diet Revolution was based on 10 years of clinical success!

In April 2003, walking to work at age 72, Dr. Robert C. Atkins slipped on an icy New York sidewalk, cracked the back of his head open – developed a blood clot – slipped into a coma and died several days later. His untimely death came just as some members of the Medical Establishment were beginning to acknowledge that Atkins had been right all along.

Back in 1972, after trying a “high natural fat” diet on himself and thousands of his own patients for 10 years, Atkins wrote Diet Revolution and sold 1 million copies in six months. Immediately vilified by the AMA as a greedy “Fat Doctor,” Atkins had to defend himself and his  “high fat” ketogenic diet before a congressional committee.

Dr. Atkins survived and prospered. As a family doctor and cardiologist, Atkins enjoyed decades of successful clinical experience reversing obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. His thousands of patients over three decades were losing pounds, burning fat, and eating juicy steak – not waiting around for Ancel Keys’ gang to admit they were wrong!

Also, Atkins had no time for mealy-mouthed  journalists – baiting them, as it were, with “bacon cheeseburger talk.” And Atkins never claimed to have invented a diet; he learned about “high fat” in the Journal of the American Medical Association’s story about Dr. Alfred Pennington’s success prescribing a high fat diet to overweight, obese DuPont executives.

Biochemical proof that Atkins was right…

Lipoproteins (such as LDL) are lipid-protein emulsion-like particles made up of varying percentages of protein, fat in phospholipid form, and cholesterol. The various lipoproteins transport fat-soluble lipids – such as Vitamin D – in the aqueous blood. (Remember, fat and water don’t mix.)

Lipoproteins are needed to deliver:

• Fat – in triglyceride form – Tri-3 fatty acids attached to glycerol
• Cholesterol – free and esterified (attached to something)
• Fat soluble nutrients such as beta carotene

There are two distinct lipoprotein systems – one for dietary fat and one for liver-made fat. In humans, the chylomicron delivers dietary fat, assembled within the intestinal wall to transport exogenous lipids out to the body.

The chylomicron’s key identifying protein is apolipoprotein B48. ApoB48 is the exclusive marker for fat and other lipids arriving from the diet. ApoB48 wraps around the particle – providing structure and signal identification to cell receptors throughout the body.

Lipoprotein                                   Protein Identifier                          Function

The second largest lipoprotein is VLDL – very low density lipoprotein – made in the liver to transport liver-made fat (triglycerides). Chylomicrons and VLDL are the triglyceride-rich lipoproteins. If the chylomicron is an 18-wheeler, VLDL’s are smaller UPS-like delivery trucks. Their common duty is to carry fat and other lipids away from the intestines and the liver, respectively.

Triglyceride (three fatty acids attached to glycerol) describes how fat is assembled for delivery in the body, as shown below. The word triglyceride has another meaning in your blood work or lipid profile:  Triglyceride (TG) represents how much liver-made fat (triglycerides) is circulating in your blood after fasting 10-12 hours.

Triglyceride: three fatty acids attached to glycerol

The Dietary Fat Pathway

Between meals, the intestines secrete lipid poor chylomicrons, but when fat is absorbed after a meal, the chylomicrons increase in size quickly; great flux in the dietary fat pathway. As they mature into large “B48s,” chylomicrons are dispatched into the blood stream via the lymph.

Chylomicrons have a short half life – 13 to 14 minutes. After a fat-rich meal, say three eggs fried in butter or lard, apoB48s will disappear from the circulation in 2 or 3 hours. Hungry cells spot the B48 marker and quickly snatch up the dietary fat! In your fasting blood work, chylomicrons – B48s – will be too few to measure.

(Chylomicrons can also offload their triglycerides to other lipoproteins. As we will learn in future editions of Diet Heart News, lipoproteins are not discreet particles; they can interact with each other in complex ways. The body wastes nothing!)

The body-made fat pathway

In the circulation, liver-made VLDL – apoB100 – has a very different fate. After about 80 percent of VLDL’s liver-made and liver-assembled triglycerides are off-loaded, VLDL morphs into low density lipoprotein (LDL) – a smaller particle (van) now delivering mostly cholesterol. (There is a short-lived intermediate density lipoprotein – IDL – that is on the spectrum between VLDL and LDL.)

Eat a lot of carbohydrates, especially the easily-digested variety, and your liver will make a lot of fat (Triglyceride) and need plenty of trucks (VLDL) to haul it away:

VLDL – made in the liver to haul away triglycerides made in the liver.

Triglycerides (TG) – in blood work, a measure of residual liver-made fats in the blood.

So there you have it – Atkins was right – carbohydrates – not fats – determine the atherogenicity of the fat and cholesterol traveling in your blood.  According to lipid biochemist Michael Gurr, B48 is vastly outnumbered in artery plaque by B100:

“There is some evidence for the presence of apoB48 in arterial lesions, although this is difficult to demonstrate since apoB48 is enormously outnumbered in the circulation by apoB100 (italics mine).”

Elevated Triglycerides in blood – especially over 150 mg/dl – reflect excess carbohydrates in the diet and increased risk of heart disease. Also, the higher your Triglycerides (TG), the more likely your LDL – no matter the concentration – will morph into small, dense  Pattern B – also associated with elevated triglycerides, low HDL, and increased risk of heart disease.

Healthy people efficiently absorb chylomicrons. Remnants are recycled in the liver. B48s do not show up in fasting blood work and have no direct effect on liver-made VLDL-IDL-LDL:  the B-100 cascade.

Coming Soon:  LDL is a family of seven sisters; who among them is a culprit – or is it the sweet, sticky company she keeps?

Let’s note right off the bat, there’s no such thing as ‘good and bad’ cholesterol. As shown below, cholesterol is a single natural substance – the grandmother steroid – featuring a four-ring structure of carbon atoms.

All steroid hormones (such as Vitamin D) are made from cholesterol, but, as we shall learn, cholesterol is much more than a hormone.

Cholesterol is made in a complex 27-step process from the 2-carbon substance called acetyl-CoA. The 4-ring structure is the chemical signature of a steroid. On the bottom left, there’s a hydrocarbon tail (HO), where cholesterol esterifies (or attaches) to other molecules and a hydroxyl group- top right.

Classified as a fat-soluble lipid, cholesterol is not a fat, it has no calories, and it’s not a source of energy. Cholesterol is a sterol – a high molecular weight alcohol. Animals, plants, and microorganisms require different sterols.

Cholesterol is the animal sterol – found in every cell in animal bodies. It is true that, as a minor component, cholesterol can be found in plant membranes, but the sterols  sitosterol and stigmasterol predominate in plants.

According to UK lipid biochemist Michael Gurr:   “Only cholesterol will allow animal cells to function as required. Without cholesterol, our bodies would not function properly and we would die.”

Cholesterol waterproofs our trillions of membranes, making it possible for our cells to regulate their internal environments – policing and maintaining “cellular security.” Cholesterol also plays a key role in intra and inter-cellular communications and signaling.

Cholesterol ensures that the cell’s lipid bi-layer (two layers of fat in phospholipid form) is neither too rigid nor too flexible. If that’s not enough, cholesterol is the goddess-like precursor to all adrenal, steroid and sex hormones such as estrogen and testosterone. Without cholesterol, we could not stand, move, think, respond to stress – or reproduce!

The liver is the main site of cholesterol synthesis, but every cell can make cholesterol (except nervous tissue).  Our bodies contain up to 100 grams of cholesterol – 90 percent in cell membranes and the rest dissolved in adipose and other tissues. The highest concentration (25 percent) is in the nerve cell connections and in the myelin that protects brain and nervous tissue.

In particular, infants need a large amount of cholesterol for proper brain development – and very large amounts of cholesterol are supplied in human milk – not in formula. Cholesterol is needed to properly form the part of the brain that allows the eyes to develop normally. In young and old alike, cholesterol is a primary raw material for many healing processes.

As an example, when an injury occurs on the Teflon-like, slick endothelial layer in an artery – say from high blood sugar – the body’s first responders are cholesterol, blood platelets, specialized white blood cells, and other materials that patch up the injury – similar to a scab forming over a break in the skin.

In the Optimal Diet, eggs are a “free food.”

“Cholesterol is absolutely essential for life,” writes Peter Attia, MD, President and co-Founder of the Nutrition Science Initiative:

“The animal body must have cholesterol to function properly and  to manufacture vital hormones and chemicals.”

And, for people whose bodies may not properly synthesize cholesterol, cholesterol in food may be a conditionally essential nutrient.

As you may note, the medical profession has utterly failed to properly describe the essential nature of cholesterol. Future editions of Diet Heart News will continue to expound on the importance of cholesterol and saturated fat in the American diet.

 

As the cholesterol controversy rages on, we can look back in history and review a few books that attempted to clear up the confusion. If the medical profession had been required to read these books – many written by medical doctors – the senseless War on Cholesterol could have ended decades ago!

But – no – the cholesterol/saturated fat hocus-pocus from the drug companies, major media, and Medical Industrial complex continues unabated.

The oldest book, The Cholesterol Controversy, was written by Edward R. Pinckney, MD, and his wife Cathy (published in 1973).  Edward Pinckney was a specialist in preventive medicine with post doctorate degrees in public health and law. He had practiced internal medicine in Beverly Hills. Co-author Cathy Pinckney was trained in psychology and was a writer for several television shows and motion pictures.

From an amazon.com review:

“I bought this book when it was first published [1973] and took his message to heart. At sixty, eating 36 eggs a week, lots of red meat and using coconut oil as my primary cooking fat, my total cholesterol is 164 and all the other numbers are excellent.

The author has been vindicated by time and subsequent research. There has been a veritable explosion of books debunking the fraud perpetrated by the American Heart Association and the statin “pushers”; but this was the first and even at this date is well worth reading.”

The Cholesterol Conspiracy was written by Russell L Smith, Ph.D (published in 1991), a friend and associate of Edward Pinckney. With 126 pages of scientific references, The Cholesterol Conspiracy is a great reference book for the scholar or researcher. Russell Smith had 15 years of academic education with a strong background in physiology. During his distinguished career, he wrote over 100 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles and technical papers. At the time he wrote this book, he had spent 15 years studying the “diet-blood cholesterol-coronary heart disease issue.”

From the FORWARD:

“Hitler did it. He was not the first but he did it quite successfully. It being the big lie. He and his cohorts told it often enough, and with official state backing, so that just about everyone involved believed it. And if you thought it could never happen again – outside of politicians, that is – you were mistaken. What is even worse, the big lie about cholesterol may well kill millions of people without ever interfering with their rights, beliefs or their backgrounds.”

The Cholesterol Conspiracy was endorsed by George V. Mann, MD:

“Saturated fat and cholesterol in the diet are not the cause of coronary heart disease. That myth is the greatest scientific deception of this century, perhaps of any century.”

The Cholesterol Myths was written by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD (published in 2000). Dr. Ravnskov received his medical degree from the University of Copenhagen in 1961. Since 1990, he has published 40 critical papers and letters about the alleged association between cholesterol and heart disease in peer-reviewed medical journals.

From the FORWARD by UK lipid biochemist Michael Gurr:

“Dr. Ravnskov’s contention is that the diet-heart idea is a house built on sand. He leads us through the history of the concept in an interesting and readable way. Step by step he examines the evidence for the diet-heart idea, and step by step, he shows us how that evidence may be flawed or contradicted by other research that is rarely acknowledged.

Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD: 

“Did you know that cholesterol is not a deadly poison, but a substance vital to the cells of all animals. Did you know that your body produces three to four times more cholesterol than you eat? Did you know that cholesterol-lowering drugs are dangerous to your health and may shorten your life?”

Understanding Cholesterol

Healthwise Incorporated provides information fact sheets to doctors and medical organizations (a family member of mine received this in the mail yesterday). The title, “Understanding Cholesterol,” does exactly the opposite of what it promises. It is simply a rehash of the typical cut and paste gross oversimplifications and myths about cholesterol.

Here’s a sample and my brief rebuttal:

1. Cholesterol is a type of fat that is made in the body.

Cholesterol is not a fat or fatty acid; cholesterol is a sterol – a high molecular weight alcohol. (These folks don’t even know what chole-sterol is!) Cholesterol is the animal sterol – found in every cell in our bodies.

2.  The lower your total cholesterol the better.

The all cause death rate increases when cholesterol falls below 160 mg/dl (published in Circulation – 1992 – the American Heart Association’s own journal.) Low cholesterol is, in fact, a warning of earlier mortality. Cancer is associated with low cholesterol – as is accidents, dementia depression, suicide and violent death.

3. High total cholesterol can raise your chances of getting heart disease.

Total cholesterol is a very unreliable predictor of heart disease. The majority of people who die of heart disease have low or average cholesterol levels in their blood (Framingham Heart Study). Elevated triglycerides – not cholesterol – is the most reliable predictor of heart disease – along with low levels of HDL. For this reason, in Japan, Total Cholesterol has been omitted from lipid profiles.

4. The lower your LDL, the better.

The majority of people who die of heart disease have low or average levels of LDL. In a 5-year UCLA study using a American Heart Association data base of 541 hospitals, 75 percent of the people who suffered a heart attack had LDL below 130 mg/dl – thought to be protective; 50 percent had LDL below 100 mg/dl.

Wouldn’t you think this study alone – ignored by the major media -  would have done in the cholesterol-causes-heart-disease hypothesis?

5. Eating foods high in saturated fat and cholesterol causes high cholesterol.

Saturated stearic acid (found in beef and chocolate) actually lowers cholesterol and/or increases HDL – so called ‘good’ cholesterol. Ancel Keys – father of the low fat diet – in the 1950s and again in retirement in 1997 said: “Cholesterol in food has no affect on cholesterol in blood and we’ve known that all along.” Why didn’t your doctor get this message?

6. You can lower your cholesterol by eating foods that are low in saturated fat and cholesterol.

Cholesterol from the diet is poorly absorbed and has no influence whatsoever on blood cholesterol levels – as noted above. Also, sugar elevates triglycerides and triglycerides – not cholesterol – reliably predict increased risk of heart disease.

Happy New Year!

It’s almost 2013 – time to put an end to the failed Diet Heart Hypothesis – the still unproven idea that dietary cholesterol and saturated fat cause heart disease.

The latest and most up to date book about cholesterol and heart disease is appropriately called The Great Cholesterol Myth by Jonny Bowden, PhD – a nutritionist – and Stephen Sinatra, MD – a cardiologist. This book describes why lowering your cholesterol – if that’s even possible – won’t prevent heart disease.

More important, authors Bowden and Sinatra go into appropriate detail into the liver-made triglycerides and lipoproteins – showing how LDL concentration (amount in blood) predicts nothing, but – instead – a high LDL particle count and a related high Triglyceride level (TG_ accurately assess your risk of heart disease.

For more information about The Great Cholesterol Myth, go to Diet Heart Books.

In 1987, Mevacor, the first statin cholesterol-lowering drug, was introduced in record short time. Within a decade, Zocor, Pravachol, Lescol, Lipitor and Baycol were added. In August 2001, after 31 deaths from a muscle-destroying side effect, Bayer of Germany withdrew Baycol.

While clinical studies have demonstrated a small benefit among people with active, late stage heart disease, the threat of muscle-destroying side effects, liver damage and cancer are on the rise.

As reported in the Felix Letter, in the “supposedly successful” Simvastatin trial (Zocor), where the average life extension in the treatment group after 5 years was 24 days, Dr. Louis Krut is quoted as saying:

 “If we were to set a very modest goal to extend their average life by only 1 year, it would require them to take simvastatin for 83 years.”

 According to Dr. Uffe Ravnskov, statin drugs may stimulate cancer. Because the latency period between exposure and incidence is as long as 20 years, we do not know the extent to which the statin drugs will increase the rate of cancer in coming decades.

In the CARE study (Pravachol), 12 women in the treatment group developed breast cancer compared to just one in the control group (not taking the drug). And blood levels in the patients taking statin drugs were close to those that cause cancer in rodents.

Why take a chance with muscle-destroying side effects, liver failure and cancer? That’s what I asked my now deceased mother-in-law several years ago when she started taking Zocor.

Doris’s total cholesterol was 285. She was a little overweight but, at age 72, she was enjoying life and had no history of chronic illness. She drove a car, went shopping, and was even looking for a boyfriend!

As she lay in ICU one year later with elevated liver enzymes and a serious blood infection, her doctor took her off of Zocor. Once she stabilized, suspecting the drug had caused harm, we asked her doctor to recheck her cholesterol.

Yes  – Doris was dying, but why not see if the drug treatment nonetheless had succeeded in lowering her cholesterol. When the doctor reluctantly complied – it took a letter from the family – Doris’s cholesterol was 130 – a drop of 155 mg/dl in less than a year.

After a few more agonizing hospitalizations, Doris was dead – Zocored within a year of starting the drug. Her doctor said she died of leukemia. Women – don’t let this happen to you. There are no circumstances – ever – when a woman should take a drug to lower cholesterol.

Women with higher cholesterol – live longer. Also, you must ask your doctor for a complete lipid evaluation. Just focusing on total cholesterol is a serious medical mistake. The ultimate price you may pay is an agonizingly slow death from cancer, liver failure or leukemia.

Even though elevated blood sugar is the common denominator of obesity, diabetes, and diet-related heart disease, the words  “blood sugar” do not appear in the federal government’s official 2010 Dietary Guidelines.

Professor Joanne Slavin, University of Minnesota, Carbohydrate Chairperson, 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, Carbohydrate Chairperson

During Day 2 of the first meeting of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC), Joanne Slavin, PhD, RD, Professor, Department of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Minnesota, chair of the Carbohydrate Committee, took the stand.

It was Halloween Day, October 30, 2008.

Professor Slavin: 

“High fructose corn sweeteners do not appear to contribute to overweight and obesity any differently than other energy sources… calories are calories and high fructose corn sweeteners are no different than other calories, calorie per calorie…”

Even before any public or scientific testimony, Dr. Slavin blocked any chance that blood-sugar-raising-refined carbohydrates  would be even mentioned in the “science-based” guidelines. A calorie of avocado, she was testifying, was no different than a calorie of corn syrup.

Professor Slavin:  “Grading carbohydrates good or bad would be too controversial.”

A General Mills VP is a member of the International Food Information Council Foundation in Washington, DC, a group that by its own admission is heavily involved in nominating DGAC members.

Controversial to whom?  To the general public hoping to dodge diabetes – or to Minnesota-based food companies like cereal-maker General Mills, a generous supporter financially of Slavin’s employer, the Nutrition School at the University of Minnesota.

Professor Slavin:  “Recommendation for added sugars is that they not be more than 25 percent of total calories …”

In the midst of obesity and diabetes epidemics, Professor Slavin is saying it’s perfectly okay for Americans to consume up to 25 percent of their calories as sugar!

Carbohydrates raise blood sugar; fats do not. Yet the 2010 Dietary guidelines say limit and restrict natural dietary fat and nutrient dense  foods like eggs, but its okay to consume up to 25 percent of calories as sugar.

Know we know why we are stuck in a diabetes epidemic!

Is it fair to ask, how did Slavin get selected to the 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC). Did she appoint herself Carbohydrate Chair? Was her Halloween Day testimony a trick on the 25 percent of the population that is diabetic or pre-diabetic and a big treat for Big Sugar?

You can read the transcripts yourself at:

  www.cnpp.usda.gov/DGAs2010-Meeting1.htm

This women is suffering from cellular starvation; chronic high insulin levels prevent her from accessing her abundant stored energy and constant hunger is the result.

Flat in the ’60s and ’70s, obesity only began to increase after 1980, the year the ”low fat” Dietary Guidelines for Americans became the “Cornerstone of U.S. nutrition policy.” But if you limit fat and foods that contain fat – like red meat – you must eat more of something else and for a majority of Americans that something else has been carbohydrates.

For more than 30 years, we’ve been told to emphasize foods that raise blood sugar:  box cereal, bread, fruit, fruit juices, pasta and grain. As a result, we dramatically increased our consumption of breakfast pastries, grain products, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and a host of ”low fat” products often displaying the American Heart Association low fat ”seal of approval.”

But here’s the rub:  Carbohydrates elevate blood sugar; fat and protein do not. (Excess protein can turn into glucose;  fat never does.) Chronic elevated blood sugar leads to high insulin. As the fat storage hormone, insulin converts excess sugars into fat – and as long as insulin is at a high level in the circulation, fat is locked up. A person may have stored energy to burn – but cannot access the fat (adipose tissue) when insulin remains elevated.

Daily excess carb intake keeps stored fat under hormonal lock and key. As long as insulin remains elevated, stored fat is not available as energy to the body’s trillions of hungry cells.

Obesity is a consequence of cellular starvation - not eating too much. A lean person with a “healthy appetite” is never accused of eating too much. The problem:  locked up adipose fat -  cellular starvation – hunger – carbohydrate cravings. It is the quality of the calories that matter  – and how those calories influence our hormones and metabolism.

Eat fat and your body burns fat.

The CDC in Atlanta referred to diabetes as a “dangerous runaway train.” Obesity feeds diabetes, and in all 50 states, the obesity rate is over 20 percent. The first step in ending obesity and type II diabetes is revising the “low fat” high carbohydrate Dietary Guidelines for Americans – in 2015.

USDA will be selecting a 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee next year. You better believe Big Sugar will want to pick their own committee member again – the Carbohydrate Chair – and keep the bad news about easily-digested carbohydrates out of the official Dietary Guidelines for another five years.

If you are tired of the worn out mantra low fat = good health, please pass this story on!