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

[Throttle]

I am absolutely, and proudly, in the minority. The AHA has sold out long ago, and most doctors don't have sufficient time or energy to pay attention.

You're also pushing the limits of what I said earlier in this thread. I suggested at the top that you should eliminate transfats and find a reasonable balance between other sources of fats. That means you need sources that are predominantly saturated (beef & dairy), predominantly mono (olive oil and -- believe it or not, pork & lard), and others that are predominantly omega-3 (fish & fish oil). You also need sources that are predominantly omega-6 but they're pretty hard to avoid in Western culture with our corn koala habits.

McD's fries & fried sandwiches have gobs of transfats. I suspect that you could get away with exactly what you described, if they keep their meat, cheeses & eggs away from the partially hydrogenated oil that they fry everything else in. Do they? There's no way to really know for sure (my friendship w/ several McD's managers has drifted now that I only eat there once a month rather than thrice a week).

My assertion is based on a swath of evidence that actually looks at the arteries & CHD outcomes. Most of the rest of the "evidence" comes from epidemiological evidence that is totally unreliable. Yet every day we wake up to the breathless claims of risk increases mined out of yet another terribly designed epidemiological study. Scientists who understand the scientific method know this. So do doctors who are paying attention. Here's a story originally published in one of science's most prestigious journals over a decade ago: http://www.nasw.org/awards/1996/96Taubesarticle.htm

yet the march of epidemiological trash continues apace... I don't have to convince you of this, each of you has to convince himself. I'm just trying to get some of you to ask the right questions -- and I'm not the first. Simon & shuan, in particular, got me to start asking these questions -- and the answers I found surprised (and later, angered) me.

 

[Throttle]

Gary Taubes says it more clearly than I ever could:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/opinion/27taubes.html

 

[Throttle]

personal update: i have long promised you guys that i would update you on the effect of saturated fat on my own 'cholesterol numbers' (ldl, hdl, etc.)

after a year of eating significantly more fat & protein, red meat, eggs, heavy cream, butter and other 'no-nos' but cutting out most transfats & adding fish oil supplementation, and eating at home as much as possible, i have come to the following tentative conclusion about myself:

diet doesn't make a damn bit of difference except as it affects my waistline. EXCEPT that a high protein / high fit diet lowers my triglycerides dramatically (something dr. atkins observed about high protein & fat diets).

my ldl is the same (very healthy). my hdl is essentially the same (abysmally low, giving me a relatively bad ldl:hdl ratio). my triglycerides have dropped by nearly 2/3rds (97 points). meanwhile i have put on 10 lbs. but my waistline is essentially the same. of course my doctor picked on me for gaining 10 pounds. ass. he didn't get out the tape measure, of course.

btw -- if you're wondering why this stuff is important to me, my paternal grandfather died in his late 40s (years before i was born) of CHD.

 

[Quagmire911]

Adding to the already growing mountain of evidence...

I'll be getting "In Defense of Food" or another sometime soon, will be able to afford it shortly.

Good to hear things are going well, congrats. Cream is a personal favourite of mine

 

[Quiksilver]

For all the unbelievers yet to be convinced by the evidence piling up at the gates...

From an article on Sherdog.net

I thought some of you might like to see this...

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...39/ai_10673558

Two dozen eggs please … hold the bacon - report on an elderly man who eats 25 eggs a day and yet maintains a normal cholesterol
Science News, April 13, 1991
Two dozen eggs please ... hold the bacon

An elderly man with a mammoth appetite for eggs serves as an extreme example that some people can eat large amounts of cholesterol-laden foods without harming their health.

In the March 28 NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE, gastroenterologist Fred Kern Jr. of the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver describes an 88-year-old retirement-home resident who has consumed an average of 25 eggs daily for more than 15 years -- yet maintains normal levels of blood cholesterol. The man, diagnosed with a compulsive eating disorder, keeps a running tally of the two dozen softboiled eggs he methodically ingests throughout the day. He eats an otherwise normal diet and is of average weight.

Kern says the man's body has "extremely efficient compensatory mechanisms" that allow him to cope with the quantity of cholesterol he consumes. Not only do his intestines absorb only 18 percent of the cholesterol he ingests--50 to 60 percent is more normal -- but his liver also produces twice the normal level of the acids, breakdown products of cholesterol.

Margaret Flynn, a clinical dietician at the University of Missouri in Columbia, says the man's healthy cholesterol level is not surprising. "All of the studies we have done showed no effect [on blood cholesterol] of high egg consumption in a normal diet," she told SCIENCE NEWS.

COPYRIGHT 1991 Science Service, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group



Also, here's a study I found...


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...?dopt=Abstract

J Am Coll Nutr. 2000 Oct;19(5 Suppl):556S-562S.Related Articles, Links
Nutritional contribution of eggs to American diets.

Food and Nutrition Database Research Center, Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Michigan State University, East Lansing 48824-1224, USA

OBJECTIVES: The main purposes of this study were (1) to assess the nutritional significance of eggs in the American diet and (2) to estimate the degree of association between egg consumption and serum cholesterol concentration.

METHODS: Data from the most recent National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES III, 1988-94) were utilized to compare the nutritional quality indicators of diets that contained eggs (USDA food grouping system) with those that did not. Nutrient intake (from 24-hour dietary recall), egg intake (from food frequency questionnaire), sociodemographic data and blood cholesterol levels of subjects who met inclusion criteria (n = 27,378) were grouped according to the occurrence and frequency of egg consumption and were analyzed using SUDAAN.

RESULTS: Daily nutrient intake of egg consumers (EC) was significantly greater than that of nonconsumers (NC) for all nutrients studied (except dietary fiber and vitamin B6). Eggs contributed < 10% of daily intake of energy and vitamin B6, 10% to 20% of folate and total, saturated and polyunsaturated fat, and 20% to 30% of vitamins A, E and B12 in EC. Compared to EC, NC had higher rates of inadequate intake (defined by Estimated Average Requirements (EAR) or < 70% Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA)) for vitamin B12 (10% vs. 21%), vitamin A (16% vs. 21%), vitamin E (14% vs. 22%) and vitamin C (15% vs. 20%). After adjusting for demographic (age, gender and ethnicity) and lifestyle variables (smoking and physical activity), dietary cholesterol was not related to serum cholesterol concentration. People who reported eating > or = 4 eggs/wk had a significantly lower mean serum cholesterol concentration than those who reported eating < or = 1 egg/wk (193 mg/dL vs. 197 mg/dL, p < 0.01). More frequent egg consumption was negatively associated with serum cholesterol concentration (beta = -6.45, p < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONS: In this cross-sectional and population-based study, egg consumption made important nutritional contributions to the American diet and was not associated with high serum cholesterol concentrations.



To sum up, eat your mother****in' whole eggs!
*Goes to make 25 egg omelette*

 

[Aktat]

good post, thank you! We´re too fixated on cholesterol, when there are other health issues that´s more important. And physicians suggest bad foods to keep the cholesterol down, when it´s not necessary.

 

[Chillisauce]

I'm very interested in this thread, keep the information coming please.

I've already been recommended to get onto the cholesterol medication at age 21! I think this is pretty ridiculous since i am a very fit (8% body-fat) man who eats well and doesn't smoke.

I really don't like taking any kind of pharmaceutical which hasn't been proven beyond my level of reasonable doubt to work, if you have some peer reviewed articles on either side of this argument I'd love to take a look.

 

[Throttle]

chillisauce, you may belong to a group of individuals with genetically high LDL levels (i have a very athletic female friend with exactly this condition), in which case we would be fools to advise for or against any medication for such a condition. who made the recommendation and why?

i've slammed nutrition science quite a bit on these boards, but i've talked to a number of actual licensed (or in training) nutritionists more recently, and they're quite humble about the state of knowledge in their field. i'm more concerned about physicians (& nurses) who really don't know jack about nutrition trying to tell us what to eat and what not to eat.

on the other hand, if a doctor says "this drug is shown in double-blind studies to reduce long-term mortality for someone with your risk factors", i'd sit up and take notice. that's (at least hopefully) more in her field of expertise.

 

[Chillisauce]

The person recommending i go onto this medication was a cardiologist, i went along with my father for the tests and you are quite right, we are in the very high risk group. He basically pointed to my father and said 'i don't even have to run any tests, just by looking at these indicators i can guarantee you have heart disease'.

I am really not convinced this works, to give an analogy it feels like I've been suggested to use gold dust to cure the bubonic plague. While it may not work and even cause problems it is worth taking to increase my odds even slightly.

I'll be keeping an eye on the medical journals (benefit of still being in college) and following this anyway but for now I'll have to add cholesterol medication to my diet.

 

[Quiksilver]

Just wrote an email to someone close to me about dietary fats, after writing I thought it might be good to post it. There is nothing really new that I'm writing about, but it still deserves reiteration:

In response to this news article:

BBC: Chocolate 'can cut blood pressure and help heart'

Question: How can I get the same benefits as described in this article without the obvious downsides of scoffing chocolate?

My response: (long read)

- dark chocolate is less processed than typical convenience store chocolate.
- dark chocolate has naturally occuring fats from the cocoa bean.
- naturally occuring fats in the cocoa bean = primarily stearic acid
- stearic acid is a saturated fat, and is NOT correlated to a rise in LDL or 'large' triglycerides. ie. it is good in moderate amounts.
- stearic acid, found in tropical oils such as red palm oil/coconut oil, is metabolized quickly by the body and so is less likely to be stored as body fat when eaten with other foods.
- if you look it up, actually the primary fatty acid in tropical oils is Lauric acid, which acts in roughly the same way as Stearic acid in the body.
- These fatty acids(lauric/stearic) are very stable at a molecular level and are not prone to oxidation or breaking down into Free radicals.
- It's widely accepted in the educated cardiovascular(most physicians give dangerous advice in this field) community that the main causes of heart disease is bodyfat level and systematic inflammation(as opposed to local inflammation).

- local inflammation = a cut, mosquito bite, etc
- systematic inflammation = inflammation of the circulatory system, liver, kidney. affects your whole body.

- systematic inflammation is generally caused by either a food allergy or toxicity from ingesting "bad" food frequently, and also by carrying too much bodyfat(toxins are stored in adipose tissue and released slowly into blood stream).

- vegetable oils(eg. canola) are easily prone to rancidity, oxidation, and molecular break down. these are toxic to your body and contribute to systematic inflammation.

- convenience store chocolates are created with vegetable oils and 99.99% of the time these oils and fats and 'vegetable gums' that are used to make confectionary are "broken fats" which, as above, are toxic to the body.

- These broken fats enter the blood stream and your body recognizes them as enemies(free radicals), and sends white blood cells to dispose of them. Once the white blood cells attach to these free radicals, they try immediately to exit the blood stream, usually by sticking themselves to the walls of arteries.

- So now, the inflammation is in the walls of an artery, so what does a body do? Well first, it's good to understand what inflammation is... On an Acid-Base scale, inflammation is Acidic. So how do you counteract an Acid? With a Base.

- What the most prevalent Base in your body? Calcium from your bones.

- So calcium from your bones is then transported to the walls of an inflammed artery to Neutralize the Acid. This leads to calcification/hardening of the arteries.

- Okay back to the point:

- Dark chocolate (implying it is relatively unrefined and unprocessed) contains 'healthy' vegetable oils because they haven't been broken by the industrial extraction process(solvents, presses, heat, etc). It also contains Stearic acid which is a saturated fat, and NOT prone to break down and NOT prone to becoming a free radical in your bloodstream.

--------------

Recap:

- Heart disease caused by systematic inflammation, and excess body fats.

- Systematic inflammation is caused by rancid and broken fatty acids entering the blood as free radicals.(there are other things but those are outside of this discussion).

- Minimally processed Dark Chocolate contains stable saturated fats and stable vegetable oils(mono unsaturated, poly unsat.) which are not prone to break down and becoming molecularly 'broken' fats and becoming free radicals.

- Stearic acid is very molecularly stable and is processed quickly by the body, thus NOT becoming free radicals, and NOT prone to being stored as body fat.

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If you managed to read through hopefully you'll understand the cause-effect of heart disease and its peripheries. This is stuff doctors won't tell you because they went through Med school and studied textbooks from the 1960s to 1980s, which is the Golden Age for misinformation regarding Saturated fats and the causes of heart disease.

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And to answer your question: To get the same benefits without the sugar and starches(which also cause inflammation), drain your vegetable oils down the sink(flaxseed oil, linseed oil, canola oil, pretty much any vegetable oil) because they are prone to rancidity and becoming free radicals in the blood stream. Instead, cook with tropical oils(coconut, red palm) primarily. Cook with butter sometimes, and use Extra Virgin olive oil with low heat cooking and salads. I say this because olive oil is prone to oxidation and damage from high heat cooking, and thus becomes dangerous to your body.

Also, take 10-30mL of high quality liquid fish oil daily(I take 30mL) to balance out your intake of fats. It is anti-inflammatory so it will help mop up any excess inflammation in the body.

cheers

 

[Cure]

Just got my measurements back from my first ever test.

4.6,

a whole point lower than the average, and Ive been drinking 4 pints whole milk and a whole lot of meat/fat for the last 6 months! So its pretty clear.

Cure.