Can someone please explain cholesterol to me?

Sorry but based on information would you avoid saturated data in any quantity?

Not sure who you are asking, but that would probably be impossible. And even if it were possible, no, I do not think that would be wise.

Personally, I just try to keep my unsats higher than my sats, and my monounsats highest of all. I don't track it though, I just use extra virgin olive oil for cooking and dressing and let the rest fall where it may.

I'm afraid I don't agree with your butter theory. If you have cholesterol 'issues', it's not the cholesterol itself that's the issue but inflammation and oxidation.

And the main foods to promote oxidation and inflammation (with the exception of trans fats) is not fat - it's sugars and processed carbs are among the biggest culprits.

Sat fat isn't the bad guy. Hell sat fat is what we're made of!!! When we burn body fat (the stuff most of us are on here to lose) our body is consuming sat fat.

Sorry, unless you can give me some reason to believe your theories over those of the top nutritional scientists in the world, I'm going to stick with the HSPH recommendations. I've been following their lead for almost 30 years and never had any health problems, including cholesterol (despite coming from a strong family history of high cholesterol).

You are confusing dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol levels. The types of fat and carbohydrates you eat often affects your blood cholesterol more than dietary cholesterol.

Maybe this will help.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/fats-and-cholesterol/

Having read through it I do think it's conclusions about saturated fats are out of date and incorrect. I personally would suggest moving away from margarine and back to butter. IMHO

They are not out of date, but it is important to remember that general recommendations do not easily change. People often think new studies trump older studies, which simply is not true. One must look at all the data, old and new, to form a general recommendation. Only when there is more data pointing in a different direction do recommendations change.

As to butter or margarine, it really depends on the margarine and quantities eaten. Those with cholesterol problems would probably be better off with a margarine that contain plant sterols and no partially hydrogenated oil, especially if they eat much of it.

If one believes that dairy fat is unhealthy, then it makes sense you would believe that.Personally refined vegetable oils are to be strictly avoided.

Why?

Hard to say, probably because it takes the guess work out out of it for you, and doubt..........doubt takes up a lot of energy, anyway that's something you have to figure out.

you are probably better researching this one by yourself, because I have highish cholesterol genetically and the amount of misinformation that gets throw around here on this topic is beyond belief. The best one was from an alleged nurse who said 'it's produced by the body so it can't be bad', I mean so is cancer yet, I still be concerned if my body produced that one.

However I think tracking your fats, particularly your 'good fats' and ensuring you don't have transfats, would be more beneficial then cholesterol, simply because not every food that has cholesterol will have it listed in the database.

Where does the 35,000 mg's that you have circulating in your body right now come from, I wonder?

yeah, it's being produced by my body, but that doesn't make it 'not bad'. One 'nurse' said in a previous post that high blood cholesterol is not bad for you, because it is produced by your body. Yes, my body is producing too much, but that doesn't make it 'good', it still ups my chances of an early heart attack which coincidentally also runs in our family just like the high cholesterol.

you are probably better researching this one by yourself, because I have highish cholesterol genetically and the amount of misinformation that gets throw around here on this topic is beyond belief. The best one was from an alleged nurse who said 'it's produced by the body so it can't be bad', I mean so is cancer yet, I still be concerned if my body produced that one.

However I think tracking your fats, particularly your 'good fats' and ensuring you don't have transfats, would be more beneficial then cholesterol, simply because not every food that has cholesterol will have it listed in the database.

Where does the 35,000 mg's that you have circulating in your body right now come from, I wonder?

yeah, it's being produced by my body, but that doesn't make it 'not bad'. One 'nurse' said in a previous post that high blood cholesterol is not bad for you, because it is produced by your body. Yes, my body is producing too much, but that doesn't make it 'good', it still ups my chances of an early heart attack which coincidentally also runs in our family just like the high cholesterol.

Your body is producing what it needs and if your body is actually manufacturing the most atherogenic type of cholesterol, then it's your lifestyle that is increasing your chances of a heart related event. A study in 2010 showed that 75% of actual heart attack victims in the USA had average to low total cholesterol.........if you want to blame it on saturated fat I suspect not much is going to change, except your will definitely see a decline in your HDL and the particle size of your LDL will get smaller, not something to be promoting imo. Dump the majority of your refined carb sources and increase your protein, get lots of exercise and lose weight.

You are confusing dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol levels. The types of fat and carbohydrates you eat often affects your blood cholesterol more than dietary cholesterol.

Maybe this will help.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/fats-and-cholesterol/

Having read through it I do think it's conclusions about saturated fats are out of date and incorrect. I personally would suggest moving away from margarine and back to butter. IMHO

They are not out of date, but it is important to remember that general recommendations do not easily change. People often think new studies trump older studies, which simply is not true. One must look at all the data, old and new, to form a general recommendation. Only when there is more data pointing in a different direction do recommendations change.

As to butter or margarine, it really depends on the margarine and quantities eaten. Those with cholesterol problems would probably be better off with a margarine that contain plant sterols and no partially hydrogenated oil, especially if they eat much of it.

If one believes that dairy fat is unhealthy, then it makes sense you would believe that.Personally refined vegetable oils are to be strictly avoided.

Why?

Hard to say, probably because it takes the guess work out out of it for you, and doubt..........doubt takes up a lot of energy, anyway that's something you have to figure out.

Um...what? You personally strictly avoid refined oil to take the guess work out of it for me?? What have you been smoking?

Epidemiology is easier on the brain.......no thinking required, you can just pick yourself up, brush yourself off and keep walking without a worry in the world. Epidemiology, the weapon of mass confusion. Butter and carrots are dangerous, because saturated fat, beausethey say so, so it must be true, because. lol

Carrots are dangerous?? :huh:

If it can't be proved in a short term study, it couldn't possibly have negative affects in the long term That seems a logical approach. Tell that to smokers.

Sorry that was for tennsidude.........I'm sure he understood my highly cryptic message.Your comparing butter to smoking, really? Correlation is the best that can be surmised and in a very unhealthy and specific demographic, hurray for epidemiology........just like blueberries and broccoli are associated with cancer or better yet, smoking.

Well I just got the results from my cholesterol test and I lowered my total cholesterol by 40. Still in the high range, but not by much.

Essentially you have total cholesterol (which I have no idea how they get this number), HDL cholesterol which is your good cholesterol, LDL cholesterol which is your bad cholesterol, and triglycerides which is essentially how much a type of fat is floating in your blood.

To lower my cholesterol I essentially looked at the LDL and HDL and hoped it would lower my total cholesterol. To lower your LDL, eat lean meats, avoid / limit saturated, unsaturated, and trans fats, and best of all raise your HDL. Raising your HDL eat items like peanuts and vegetables as natural as possible as these items absorb some cholesterol, eat polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats within reason, fish oil, niacin, and exercise as this creates HDL and makes it easier to collect more LDL for removal.

Also, your liver is responsible for making the cholesterol your body needs to survive. When you ingest animal products like chicken and beef, your cholesterol levels tend to go up because your adding cholesterol to the cholesterol your body makes. The 300 mg of cholesterol in your diary is nothing more then a daily recommended guideline. You will find it hard to hit that limit if your eating to raise your HDL. I personally try to keep that number as low as possible and don't worry too much about it.

All I can say is be careful if your eating to try and raise your HDL specifically, because sometimes you may raise your HDL significantly, but that will be essentially all for nothing because you may end up raising your LDL in the process.

Epidemiology is easier on the brain.......no thinking required, you can just pick yourself up, brush yourself off and keep walking without a worry in the world. Epidemiology, the weapon of mass confusion. Butter and carrots are dangerous, because saturated fat, beausethey say so, so it must be true, because. lol

Carrots are dangerous?? :huh:

If it can't be proved in a short term study, it couldn't possibly have negative affects in the long term That seems a logical approach. Tell that to smokers.

Sorry that was for tennsidude.........I'm sure he understood my highly cryptic message.

Sorry Neanderthin I must agree with bcattoes carrots are not dangerous.

Well they are if you just steam them!!, which is why I choose to add butter to mine because the healing properties of butter negates the danger steamed carrots present.

I hope that clears things up.

Carrots can be quite dangerous! If they're thrown at someone they could put an eye out! If they're steamed it's even worse because it could cause some very dangerous burns! :noway:

The best thing to do to raise your HDL is exercise.

Also, "cholesterol" found in foods really has nothing to do with your total cholesterol/LDL/HDL levels. Fats are much, much more important.

Saturated fats and trans fats = bad fats = raise LDL (bad cholesterol).

Polyunsaturated fats and monounsaturated fats = good fats = raise HDL (good cholesterol) and lower LDL and triglycerides.

How many times in the last 40 years has that been said.........well it was wrong then and it's still wrong. Transfats should be avoided, no doubt about it. Your right though exercise is and should be our foundation for overall health and it does positively effect our cholesterol.

I'd love to see a reputable study that proves it's wrong.

I'll assume you didn't open any of the links in this thread. I could post more........buy why.

Actually, I did. The Harvard link said exactly what I said. One was someone's "personal blog", so I skipped right over that one (note: I said reputable). The rest had nothing to do with anything I said.

The Harvard link was an opinion, not a study. The rest had everything to do with what you said.

Go green!!!! No meat, no dairy Cholesterol is my meanest friend and watch the carbs for triglycerides. : )

AvonBell links to actual studies would really work well here considering your 1st paragraph. RCT would be great if you have some. Your LDL level recommendation is more than likely a mistake, I'm sure that's for total C.

Personally I'm a sceptic or at least that's how after quite a long time researching nutritional science is how I've ended up. Ironically the cherry picking seems to be heavily weighted in the camp that makes broad statements, like in the links you provided and again generally their premise for those opinions are on observational long term studies of one nature or another, and never double or triple blind control studies, and that's probably for a good reason, because there aren't any, so at best they prove correlation.......personally i wouldn't call that conclusive, but many do I guess, you for example. I remain sceptical.