High Cholesterol and LDL is good - Scientific Evidence
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cstehansen
Posts: 1,984 Member
@baconslave - this may be a good item to add under resources
https://www.karger.com/Article/Pdf/381654
This is an in depth look at research regarding cholesterol and LDL levels with all cause mortality. It is very technical as it is written as a special edition of the journal "Annals of Nutrition & Metabolism," so if you are not a bit nerdy, your eyes may glaze over a bit.
Summary:
If you are over 60, your odds of death go up significantly as your cholesterol and/or LDL go down. This is for everyone including those with previous heart disease.
If you are under 50, there appears to be a U shaped curve for men where total cholesterol between 190 and 232 seems to be the best. Below that risk goes up dramatically. Above it it goes up slowly.
If you are a woman under 50, your risk of death goes down as your cholesterol goes up.
For all of these, there is SOME evidence that cardiovascular disease death goes up slightly with elevated cholesterol, however, every other cause of death goes down. I don't know about you, but death from a fairly quick heart attack seems better than a long drawn out bout with cancer. It is also less painful than death from infection. Both cancer and death from infection are significantly higher in those with lower cholesterol.
Finally, high LDL with a low Triglyceride/HDL ratio is shown to improve mental abilities as we age. So, as we know from eating this way, most tend to get trigs down and HDL up, which is quite helpful. Some also see raised LDL. For those of us for whom this is the case, I guess we will live longer and have less dementia.
https://www.karger.com/Article/Pdf/381654
This is an in depth look at research regarding cholesterol and LDL levels with all cause mortality. It is very technical as it is written as a special edition of the journal "Annals of Nutrition & Metabolism," so if you are not a bit nerdy, your eyes may glaze over a bit.
Summary:
If you are over 60, your odds of death go up significantly as your cholesterol and/or LDL go down. This is for everyone including those with previous heart disease.
If you are under 50, there appears to be a U shaped curve for men where total cholesterol between 190 and 232 seems to be the best. Below that risk goes up dramatically. Above it it goes up slowly.
If you are a woman under 50, your risk of death goes down as your cholesterol goes up.
For all of these, there is SOME evidence that cardiovascular disease death goes up slightly with elevated cholesterol, however, every other cause of death goes down. I don't know about you, but death from a fairly quick heart attack seems better than a long drawn out bout with cancer. It is also less painful than death from infection. Both cancer and death from infection are significantly higher in those with lower cholesterol.
Finally, high LDL with a low Triglyceride/HDL ratio is shown to improve mental abilities as we age. So, as we know from eating this way, most tend to get trigs down and HDL up, which is quite helpful. Some also see raised LDL. For those of us for whom this is the case, I guess we will live longer and have less dementia.
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Replies
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Thank you for sharing this. I'll read it tonight.
"Summary:
If you are over 60, your odds of death go up significantly as your cholesterol and/or LDL go down. This is for everyone including those with previous heart disease..."
My mother and I had to go to war with her doctor over that point. They wanted her on statins even though her LDL was normal - just because she is heavy. The doctor never did believe us that lowering LDL is not good for senior women in general.1 -
Yes, & cardiovascular disease has been the steady #1 killer at least in the US for quite some time.
Cherry pick & misinterpret some more to justify what you want to hear to reinforce your beliefs. Just some more of that Internet ignorance disease going around; it's quite viral in making people believe they know more than healthcare professionals.2 -
Keto_Vampire wrote: »Yes, & cardiovascular disease has been the steady #1 killer at least in the US for quite some time.
Cherry pick & misinterpret some more to justify what you want to hear to reinforce your beliefs. Just some more of that Internet ignorance disease going around; it's quite viral in making people believe they know more than healthcare professionals.
Let's remember where we are and what we do, and do not do, here.
K thnx bye.
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Keto_Vampire wrote: »Yes, & cardiovascular disease has been the steady #1 killer at least in the US for quite some time.
Cherry pick & misinterpret some more to justify what you want to hear to reinforce your beliefs. Just some more of that Internet ignorance disease going around; it's quite viral in making people believe they know more than healthcare professionals.
CVD is, absolutely, a horrible thing. I'm just not convinced that raised cholesterol is a cause of cvd. It looks more like a correlation to me. JMO.2 -
Even in the seven countries study that started the whole idea of fat and cholesterol being bad showed a higher correlation between sugar consumption and heart disease.
Rates of disease going up in the US clearly correspond to sugar consumption increasing. In the late 1800’s we ate 6 lbs per year and now that number is 152 lbs on average.
And, @Keto_Vampire , this is from a nutrition journal with plenty of peer reviewed studies clearly cited that you can look up on PubMed. Try finding RTC studies showing high cholesterol causes higher mortality in a peer reviewed journal. If you find one, please post it as I have not found one. I have, just as what I posted above shows, found some indication heart disease may increase slightly, but all cause mortality goes down primarily because of less cancer and less infection related deaths.1 -
Not saying higher cholesterol has overall better survival vs lower cholesterol.
You just do not understand how evidence based prescribing works (you are not using the correct reference for that) nor do you understand clinical judgment.
Summarizing and simplifying a 100+ page reference on a very complex subject is contextually misleading; & again, not a credible reference for the general mass for cholesterol prescribing guidelines. Sure some specialists in endocrine use their clinical judgment and do not follow standard guidelines3
