Thinking the unthinkable: Is cholesterol good? Could it be that much of what we were told about cholesterol is untrue and that cholesterol is actually essential to good health? Is the cholesterol-lowering obsession a myth? I will explain.
Perhaps the most insidious aspect of the societal matrix is that people are taught to defer the authority to create their beliefs to others. We know this as “trust the experts.”
But… Who are these “experts?” Well, for the most part, they’re people who get paid to support certain viewpoints. Drug companies give them money to recommend certain products. It’s an economic relationship. Obviously, people who get paid by the pharmafia don’t support natural cholesterol-balancing products. There’s no money in it for them. The world of modern medicine is filled with myths, lies and deception. But there is hope: Rest assured that this culture of fear can be conquered by knowledge.
Here are 7 points to consider when making decisions about cholesterol levels:
1. The origins of cholesterol. The first thing to consider when deciding if cholesterol is good, bad or neither is that most cholesterol is made by the body itself. In fact, between 80 and 90% of the cholesterol in our bodies is made by our own liver. Why? Because cholesterol is essential for several healthy processes to take place in the body. Cholesterol is essential to life.
2. Cholesterol is at the top of the hormone chain. All hormones in the body are made from a master hormone called DHEA. DHEA is made from cholesterol. Low cholesterol levels can actually disrupt the body’s entire hormonal system and cause all sorts of health problems.
Testosterone production relies on cholesterol. Estradiol production relies on cholesterol. In order to deal with stress, we need stress hormones. Stress hormones are made from cholesterol.
3. Independent research on cholesterol-lowering drugs shows that they don’t work and that they are harmful. There is a large study on cholesterol-lowering drugs which was done by the Cochrane Library. The study found that almost all medical studies claiming that cholesterol lowering drugs are safe were done by the pharmaceutical companies that sell them. The researchers collected information from drug trials that involved over 34,000 patients. Their conclusion was that there is no evidence supporting the use of statin drugs for healthy people with no history of heart disease. Furthermore, one of the researchers in the study, professor Shah Ebrahim, from the London school of hygiene and tropical medicine, was quoted as saying that the researchers “found evidence that potential harm is not being taken seriously. The adverse effects are not included in the trials.”
This is corroborated by a study published in the British medical Journal in 2010. It concluded that for every heart attack allegedly prevented by cholesterol-lowering drugs, two people suffered liver damage, kidney failure, cataracts or extreme muscle weakness as a direct result of taking statin drugs. The researchers concluded that statin drugs hurt more people than they help. This is why I and my entire family stick to natural alternatives. At least we’re not getting damaged by the products we buy.
4. A large proportion of the brain is comprised of cholesterol. Yeon-Kyun Shin, a biophysics professor in the department of biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology at Iowa State University, did an excellent study on the effects of low cholesterol and cholesterol-lowering drugs on the brain. What he found was that statin drugs (cholesterol-lowering drugs) actually decreased the brain’s capacity to produce cholesterol the cholesterol it needs. This, in turn, decreases the production of neurotransmitters in brain. The effects of this lack of neurotransmitters are depression, inability to concentrate, decreased memory and a brain that functions at a level well below its capabilities, not to mention the increased probability of suffering from a serious brain disease later in life.
5. Cholesterol is required to repair damage to blood vessels. Oxidation causes damage to blood vessels. So do toxic chemicals, junk food and stress. What repairs this damage?
Cholesterol! The cholesterol which the experts call “bad,” LDL cholesterol, is actually the cholesterol that goes to your cells and repairs your blood vessels when they are damaged. The cholesterol that the experts call “good” is actually the same cholesterol as it leaves your body on its way to be excreted from the body when its job has been done.
6. It is the balance in blood lipids that matters. As long as your ratio of HDL to LDL is good and your ratio of triglycerides to HDL is below 2, then blood lipid metabolism should be functioning properly. There are natural ways to achieve this balance.
7. There are many other biochemical factors that increase heart disease risk: High homocysteine levels, high stress levels, a type A aggressive personality, high inflammation markers, such as C-reactive protein, high lipoprotein A, and many other factors.
So what are we supposed to do? There are many natural, simple and effective ways to keep blood lipids balanced. The first of these is to maintain a diet low in junk foods, processed meats, sugar, alcohol and fructose. For most people, cholesterol-rich foods such as organic eggs and grass fed beef don’t raise blood cholesterol levels.
There are some very effective natural supplements that can work wonders when it comes to balancing blood lipids such as cholesterol and triglycerides. One of these is concentrated fish oil. Another is a broad spectrum, cholesterol-balancing supplement. Personally, I often use the products of a company based in New Zealand, due to their insistence on purity, but I also mix in several other brands, as I don’t believe that sticking to a single brand is a good idea.
You can read an extensive article on the many benefits of fish oil within my site.
For more information on cholesterol, please look up Ron Rosedale, whose knowledge goes way beyond mine. He can be found on youtube.
