Introduction
· You've been told that
cholesterol is something to be feared. That cholesterol is
the enemy. That when you eat it, it will build up in your
arteries and eventually cause heart disease, heart attacks, and
early death.
· You've been bombarded on television and in popular
magazines by ads which encourage you to ask your doctor to
prescribe the latest cholesterol lowering drug, and given the
message that the lower the level of cholesterol in your blood, the
less likely you will be to have a heart attack, stroke, or other
circulation disaster.
· You've been told by the advertising media to avoid eggs,
eat "Egg Beaters". You've been told to avoid butter and lard,
and to use various types of margarine, "Crisco", and other fake
fats. All of this to avoid the devious, sneaky enemy,
CHOLESTEROL!
· Perhaps you're taking one of the expensive cholesterol
lowering drugs known as statins, and returning to your doctor
periodically for blood tests to see if your liver, kidneys, or
muscles have been damaged by the drug. Or perhaps you are
experiencing confusion, memory problems, weakness, excessive
fatigue, or muscle pain, (increasingly common side effects of the
statin drugs) and beginning to wonder if it all makes sense.
The truth about cholesterol!
·
My mission is to teach you the truth about cholesterol and its
alleged relationship to heart disease. You will learn that
cholesterol is not the enemy, that it is not the cause of heart
attacks. You will learn the many very important roles
that cholesterol plays in your body. You will learn that the
real dangerous fats are the ones that you have been "brain-washed"
into eating if you have been following the advice of the food
industry, the medical establishment, and the popular
media.
· You will learn that the early research designed to prove
the diet/cholesterol/heart disease connection actually proved that
there was no connection between dietary cholesterol and heart
disease, and that voluminous research since then has also verified
that the cholesterol that you eat has no causative role in heart
disease.
· You will learn that the animal foods that your
grandparents ate on the farm a few generations ago, when combined
with lots of vegetables and fruits, provide the healthy fats and
other important nutrients that you and your arteries need to keep
you functioning to a ripe old age. You will also learn about
other important "good fats" that will actually prevent and treat
many of the common ailments that plague us through the aging
process.
· And we will explore the fact that the low-fat food
propaganda from the processed food industry over the last thirty
years has been a major contributor to our current epidemic of
obesity and adult-onset diabetes. Now teenagers and even
preteens are developing "adult-onset diabetes."
· You will learn of the serious dangers inherent in taking
the commonly over-prescribed statin drugs. And you will learn
of the science that exposes the real causes of heart disease.
And, most importantly, you will learn what you need to know to
avoid heart attacks, and live a long healthy life.
Have you
been lied to? Lied to by the medical establishment?
Lied to by the food industry? Lied to by the media?
In this
book I will help you sort out the truth from the commercially
motivated lies. I will provide you with numerous sources to
check so that you can verify the facts which I present. I
will direct you to the foods and nutritional supplements that will
help you achieve optimal health. And, should you need a
doctor or a nutritionist, I will help you find health practitioners
who utilize healthy alternative methods of preventing and treating
heart disease and other diseases of aging. The rest will be
up to you.
My hope
is that you will realize that often the truth is something that you
must search for. In this most important area of heart health
I aim to help you find the truth.
· Yes, you can stop worrying about cholesterol, avoid
heart attacks, and live a long healthy life!
Part I
Cholesterol! Does It Matter?
Chapter One
The Lipid Hypothesis
Four important questions:
Does the animal fat and cholesterol you eat cause elevation
of your blood cholesterol level?
Does the animal fat and cholesterol you eat cause heart
disease?
Does the cholesterol in your blood cause heart disease?
Does lowering your blood cholesterol prevent you
from having heart attacks?
The idea that fat and cholesterol consumption is the reason for our
current epidemic of heart disease originated early in the twentieth
century when it was observed that the plaques in the arteries of
heart attack victims contained fat and cholesterol. The
Framingham study, which began in 1948 and continued for many years,
was designed to prove "the lipid hypothesis". The lipid
hypothesis is simply the theory that there is a direct relationship
between the amount of saturated fat (animal fat) and cholesterol in
the diet, and the incidence of coronary heart disease (heart
attacks).
The
Framingham Study is used by those who endorse the lipid hypothesis,
as proof of the validity of the lipid hypothesis. In this
study approximately 5000 people were followed and studied every
five years. There were two groups. Those who consumed large
amounts of animal fat and cholesterol were compared with those who
consumed very little. Forty years after the start of this
study, its director, Dr. William Castelli, reluctantly admitted,
In Framingham, Massachusetts the more saturated fat one ate,
the more cholesterol one ate, the more calories one ate, the lower
the person's serum cholesterol. We found that the people who
ate the most cholesterol, ate the most saturated fat, and ate the
most calories, weighed the least and were the most active.
Yes, those who ate the most cholesterol and fat gained the least
amount of weight. Although the study did find an association
between high levels of blood cholesterol and increased likelihood
of future heart attacks, the elevated cholesterol was only one of
over 240 "risk factors" that were associated with increased risk of
heart attacks. And this association was found only in young
and middle aged men. In the 30 year follow-up of the Framingham
Study, high cholesterol was not predictive of heart attack at all
after the age of 47. In other words, according to the
Framingham Study, once a man reaches the age of 48 there is no
relationship between high levels of cholesterol and dying of heart
attack. And most alarming is the fact that those whose
cholesterol dropped without any intervention ran a much higher risk
of heart attack than those whose cholesterol increased. The
significantly increased risk of dying from heart disease and from
other diseases in those whose cholesterol decreased is so contrary
to what we have been led to believe that I feel it is important to
print the whole abstract of the article that points out that
fact.
This
article appeared in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical
Association on April 24, 1987 under the title, Cholesterol and
mortality. Thirty years of follow-up from the Framingham
study. Its authors are the chief investigators of the
Framingham study, W.P. Castelli, K.M. Anderson, and D. Levy.
Here is the abstract: "From 1951 to 1955 serum cholesterol levels
were measured in 1959 men and 2415 women aged between 31 and 65
years who were free of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and
cancer….
