Can someone please explain cholesterol to me?

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.

My point about the research was that the prevailing view among experts is that saturated fats promote heart disease. I can point to any one study (there are so many) but I figured playing study vs study was unhelpful. The said, the Harvard School of Public Health has a good write-up of the current understanding concerning fats and cholesterol. The piece is well sourced and there are many studies listed under references.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/fats-full-story/#references


You're right about the cholesterol stuff. I meant to write 70 mg/d. The National Cholesterol Education Program has also set guidelines. They recommend LDL levels below 100 mg/dl.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/cholesterol-targets/



There has been decades worth of research showing the link between saturated fat and heart disease. It's true that replacing saturated fats with refined carbs isn't going to help you at all but replacing sat fats with healthy fats does. This has been conclusively proven. When I encounter a study, not just in nutrition but also in physics or climatology, that counters decades of research I expect extraordinary evidence. Sat fats/cholesterol deniers have failed that test time and time again.

In most studies and not all we do find that replacing saturated fat with unsaturated fat does lower cholesterol, which is not the same thing as saying that it reduces heart disease. Replacing saturated fat with unsaturated especially polyunsaturated fat lowers HDL cholesterol and you have to keep in mind that all research has included trans fats in that equation, which by definition is a saturated fat but in actual fact is generally a polyunsaturated fat that has been altered, which has skewed the research for decades considering it's derogatory effect on cholesterol. Also particle size of LDL influences it's relationship to heart disease, the smaller the more athergenic and if you look you'll consistantly see that saturated fat influences particle size as does all food sources, sugar/refined carbs for example lower our cholesterol levels but also influence particle size of both HDL and LDL and it reduces the size of these particles making them more atherogenic, and the main reason the reference to replacing saturated fat for carbs might not be the best course of action.

ETA: What are your thoughts on this study. I linked in earlier.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14601690

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.

My point about the research was that the prevailing view among experts is that saturated fats promote heart disease. I can point to any one study (there are so many) but I figured playing study vs study was unhelpful. The said, the Harvard School of Public Health has a good write-up of the current understanding concerning fats and cholesterol. The piece is well sourced and there are many studies listed under references.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/fats-full-story/#references


You're right about the cholesterol stuff. I meant to write 70 mg/d. The National Cholesterol Education Program has also set guidelines. They recommend LDL levels below 100 mg/dl.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/cholesterol-targets/



There has been decades worth of research showing the link between saturated fat and heart disease. It's true that replacing saturated fats with refined carbs isn't going to help you at all but replacing sat fats with healthy fats does. This has been conclusively proven. When I encounter a study, not just in nutrition but also in physics or climatology, that counters decades of research I expect extraordinary evidence. Sat fats/cholesterol deniers have failed that test time and time again.

In most studies and not all we do find that replacing saturated fat with unsaturated fat does lower cholesterol, which is not the same thing as saying that it reduces heart disease. Replacing saturated fat with unsaturated especially polyunsaturated fat lowers HDL cholesterol and you have to keep in mind that all research has included trans fats in that equation, which by definition is a saturated fat but in actual fact is generally a polyunsaturated fat that has been altered, which has skewed the research for decades considering it's derogatory effect on cholesterol. Also particle size of LDL influences it's relationship to heart disease, the smaller the more athergenic and if you look you'll consistantly see that saturated fat influences particle size as does all food sources, sugar/refined carbs for example lower our cholesterol levels but also influence particle size of both HDL and LDL and it reduces the size of these particles making them more atherogenic, and the main reason the reference to replacing saturated fat for carbs might not be the best course of action.

ETA: What are your thoughts on this study. I linked in earlier.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14601690

The first problem with the study strikes me immediately, the sample size was only 23 people. The abstract makes no mention of how diets varied and how that was monitored which is a bit suspicious. Thinking maybe this was in the full paper, I did some poking around. I'm afraid these details were in fact missing:

"The effect of this diet on particle size is of interest, but the number of study patients is small, and possible variation in the diet and diet compliance are unclear. Long-term follow-up and larger numbers of patients are needed for more definitive information. Of note, plasma homocysteine concentrations and C-reactive protein increased in the short-duration study. The 1 long-term study comparing the Atkins diet with various low-fat diets for 1 year showed that with the Atkins diet, homocysteine concentrations, C-reactive protein, and lipoprotein(a) all increased.5 This study also showed that with a high-fat diet, LDL cholesterol and TG levels increased, HDL levels decreased, and the cholesterol-to-HDL ratio became abnormal, all suggesting that this diet may have important long-term limitations."

http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(11)62709-2/fulltext

BTW, pointing to one study as evidence for anything is unhelpful. Science is built on layers. This study is a decade old. Where is the follow up, long term study, that confirmed these results? This is science is done.

Quite a bit of misinformation here.

Saturated fat contributes to heart disease. The research here is overwhelming. Skeptics will cherry pick a study here and there to try to convince you otherwise. These studies often make the mistake of comparing high fat diets to other unhealthy diets. This is a false dichotomy.

The American Heart Association recommends limiting your saturated fats to 7% of you total daily caloric intake. The WHO recommends less than 10%.

If you're interested in taking care of your heart, the mayo clinic lays it out clearly:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/heart-disease/in-depth/heart-disease-prevention/art-20046502

On cholesterol:

High cholesterol puts you at risk for heart disease. Low cholesterol can also put you at risk from some nasty stuff.

Basically, you want to lower LDL cholesterol and increase HDL. The recommendations are for LDL levels below 200 mg/dl and HDL levels above 60 mg/dl.

More here:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-cholesterol/expert-answers/cholesterol-level/faq-20057952

and here:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-cholesterol/in-depth/cholesterol-levels/art-20048245

You should be tracking this every year as part of your annual blood work.

:noway:

I am pleased you qualified your post with the statement 'Quite a bit of misinformation here'.

It was very helpful - the Mayo Clinic are spouting quite a bit of misinformation - in particular Sat Fats.

I don't care either way. I just follow the preponderance of evidence and consensus opinion by relevant experts. And with all due respect, this appears to be religion for you. I avoid arguing religion, I don't find them to be a productive use of my time.

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.

My point about the research was that the prevailing view among experts is that saturated fats promote heart disease. I can point to any one study (there are so many) but I figured playing study vs study was unhelpful. The said, the Harvard School of Public Health has a good write-up of the current understanding concerning fats and cholesterol. The piece is well sourced and there are many studies listed under references.


http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/fats-full-story/#references


You're right about the cholesterol stuff. I meant to write 70 mg/d. The National Cholesterol Education Program has also set guidelines. They recommend LDL levels below 100 mg/dl.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/cholesterol-targets/



There has been decades worth of research showing the link between saturated fat and heart disease. It's true that replacing saturated fats with refined carbs isn't going to help you at all but replacing sat fats with healthy fats does. This has been conclusively proven. When I encounter a study, not just in nutrition but also in physics or climatology, that counters decades of research I expect extraordinary evidence. Sat fats/cholesterol deniers have failed that test time and time again.

In most studies and not all we do find that replacing saturated fat with unsaturated fat does lower cholesterol, which is not the same thing as saying that it reduces heart disease. Replacing saturated fat with unsaturated especially polyunsaturated fat lowers HDL cholesterol and you have to keep in mind that all research has included trans fats in that equation, which by definition is a saturated fat but in actual fact is generally a polyunsaturated fat that has been altered, which has skewed the research for decades considering it's derogatory effect on cholesterol. Also particle size of LDL influences it's relationship to heart disease, the smaller the more athergenic and if you look you'll consistantly see that saturated fat influences particle size as does all food sources, sugar/refined carbs for example lower our cholesterol levels but also influence particle size of both HDL and LDL and it reduces the size of these particles making them more atherogenic, and the main reason the reference to replacing saturated fat for carbs might not be the best course of action.

ETA: What are your thoughts on this study. I linked in earlier.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14601690

The first problem with the study strikes me immediately, the sample size was only 23 people. The abstract makes no mention of how diets varied and how that was monitored which is a bit suspicious. Thinking maybe this was in the full paper, I did some poking around. I'm afraid these details were in fact missing:

"The effect of this diet on particle size is of interest, but the number of study patients is small, and possible variation in the diet and diet compliance are unclear. Long-term follow-up and larger numbers of patients are needed for more definitive information. Of note, plasma homocysteine concentrations and C-reactive protein increased in the short-duration study. The 1 long-term study comparing the Atkins diet with various low-fat diets for 1 year showed that with the Atkins diet, homocysteine concentrations, C-reactive protein, and lipoprotein(a) all increased.5 This study also showed that with a high-fat diet, LDL cholesterol and TG levels increased, HDL levels decreased, and the cholesterol-to-HDL ratio became abnormal, all suggesting that this diet may have important long-term limitations."

http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(11)62709-2/fulltext

BTW, pointing to one study as evidence for anything is unhelpful. Science is built on layers. This study is a decade old. Where is the follow up, long term study, that confirmed these results? This is science is done.

First paragraph in your link.

the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) of the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, the American Medical Association, and other medical groups have developed extensive guidelines to decrease low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and modify other risk factors with the hope of decreasing the incidence of heart disease. Despite the documented decrease in LDL cholesterol and total cholesterol nationally as a result of these efforts, obesity and diabetes have continued to increase progressively, primarily because of a marked decrease in physical activity and exercise as well as an increase in caloric intake in the American population.

Here's the study:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19081406

In a large cohort of patients hospitalized with CAD, almost half have admission LDL levels <100 mg/dL. More than half the patients have admission HDL levels <40 mg/dL, whereas <10% have HDL > or =60 mg/dL. These findings may provide further support for recent guideline revisions with even lower LDL goals and for developing effective treatments to raise HDL.

75% of the total had LDL within guidelines and half below 100 with 17% under 70. It appears the conclusion is that LDL isn't low enough.........Makes me wonder how low it has to be so that this trend reverses.........I wonder why the 25% group that had higher total cholesterol were more protected.

The basic focus of this study through NCEP was to look if they need to lower the requirement for lipid lowering drugs and this is support for lowering that requirement. Only 21% of these patients were on lipid lowering medication. I suspect in the near future that a newer and younger demographic will now come under that guideline.......just an educated guess mind you

The entire "saturated fat causes heart disease" premise came from rabbit studies. Maybe you don't know this, but rabbits are herbivores. They aren't built to metabolize saturated fat. So when researchers started shoving large amounts of saturated fats into rabbits, bad things happened to the rabbits.

Fortunately, we aren't rabbits. In fact, the majority of mother's milk is saturated fat. If saturated fat is bad for us, then I guess mothers everywhere need to stop breast feeding.

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.

My point about the research was that the prevailing view among experts is that saturated fats promote heart disease. I can point to any one study (there are so many) but I figured playing study vs study was unhelpful. The said, the Harvard School of Public Health has a good write-up of the current understanding concerning fats and cholesterol. The piece is well sourced and there are many studies listed under references.


http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/fats-full-story/#references


You're right about the cholesterol stuff. I meant to write 70 mg/d. The National Cholesterol Education Program has also set guidelines. They recommend LDL levels below 100 mg/dl.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/cholesterol-targets/



There has been decades worth of research showing the link between saturated fat and heart disease. It's true that replacing saturated fats with refined carbs isn't going to help you at all but replacing sat fats with healthy fats does. This has been conclusively proven. When I encounter a study, not just in nutrition but also in physics or climatology, that counters decades of research I expect extraordinary evidence. Sat fats/cholesterol deniers have failed that test time and time again.

In most studies and not all we do find that replacing saturated fat with unsaturated fat does lower cholesterol, which is not the same thing as saying that it reduces heart disease. Replacing saturated fat with unsaturated especially polyunsaturated fat lowers HDL cholesterol and you have to keep in mind that all research has included trans fats in that equation, which by definition is a saturated fat but in actual fact is generally a polyunsaturated fat that has been altered, which has skewed the research for decades considering it's derogatory effect on cholesterol. Also particle size of LDL influences it's relationship to heart disease, the smaller the more athergenic and if you look you'll consistantly see that saturated fat influences particle size as does all food sources, sugar/refined carbs for example lower our cholesterol levels but also influence particle size of both HDL and LDL and it reduces the size of these particles making them more atherogenic, and the main reason the reference to replacing saturated fat for carbs might not be the best course of action.

ETA: What are your thoughts on this study. I linked in earlier.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14601690

The first problem with the study strikes me immediately, the sample size was only 23 people. The abstract makes no mention of how diets varied and how that was monitored which is a bit suspicious. Thinking maybe this was in the full paper, I did some poking around. I'm afraid these details were in fact missing:

"The effect of this diet on particle size is of interest, but the number of study patients is small, and possible variation in the diet and diet compliance are unclear. Long-term follow-up and larger numbers of patients are needed for more definitive information. Of note, plasma homocysteine concentrations and C-reactive protein increased in the short-duration study. The 1 long-term study comparing the Atkins diet with various low-fat diets for 1 year showed that with the Atkins diet, homocysteine concentrations, C-reactive protein, and lipoprotein(a) all increased.5 This study also showed that with a high-fat diet, LDL cholesterol and TG levels increased, HDL levels decreased, and the cholesterol-to-HDL ratio became abnormal, all suggesting that this diet may have important long-term limitations."

http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(11)62709-2/fulltext

BTW, pointing to one study as evidence for anything is unhelpful. Science is built on layers. This study is a decade old. Where is the follow up, long term study, that confirmed these results? This is science is done.

First paragraph in your link.

the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) of the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, the American Medical Association, and other medical groups have developed extensive guidelines to decrease low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and modify other risk factors with the hope of decreasing the incidence of heart disease. Despite the documented decrease in LDL cholesterol and total cholesterol nationally as a result of these efforts, obesity and diabetes have continued to increase progressively, primarily because of a marked decrease in physical activity and exercise as well as an increase in caloric intake in the American population.

Here's the study:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19081406

In a large cohort of patients hospitalized with CAD, almost half have admission LDL levels <100 mg/dL. More than half the patients have admission HDL levels <40 mg/dL, whereas <10% have HDL > or =60 mg/dL. These findings may provide further support for recent guideline revisions with even lower LDL goals and for developing effective treatments to raise HDL.

75% of the total had LDL within guidelines and half below 100 with 17% under 70. It appears the conclusion is that LDL isn't low enough.........Makes me wonder how low it has to be so that this trend reverses.........I wonder why the 25% group that had higher total cholesterol were more protected.

The basic focus of this study through NCEP was to look if they need to lower the requirement for lipid lowering drugs and this is support for lowering that requirement. Only 21% of these patients were on lipid lowering medication. I suspect in the near future that a newer and younger demographic will now come under that guideline.......just an educated guess mind you

Total cholesterol is less useful than LDL:HDL ratio. What all of this research show is you want more of the latter and less of the former.

The entire "saturated fat causes heart disease" premise came from rabbit studies.

No, it didn't.

Total cholesterol is less useful than LDL:HDL ratio. What all of this research show is you want more of the latter and less of the former.

Lower levels of LDL and raising HDL has been the status quo for 40 years. Particle size, triglyceride's and HDL are better indicators. Who knows, maybe chasing lower LDL will result in a different outcome, I'm sure they hope it does.

I'm one of those blessed with genetically high cholesterol (260). I've been high cholesterol since my first test in my 20's, even though I've never been overweight (BMI of 21.1), eat a high fiber diet with minimal processed foods, and I'm an avid runner.

I added fish oil supplements to my diet a year ago (omega 3's) and this year when I was tested my HDL had gone way up. So instead of high cholesterol with low HDL, like I had before the fish oil, I now have high cholesterol with optimal levels of HDL. My risk ratio is actually better than average, because my HDL balances out the LDL. So I'm cool with that and so is my doctor.

You've recieved many great posts on this topic. Years ago, I insisted on testing my cholesterol. At the time it was 297. (My Doctor likes to see it below 200.) I tried a very strict diet for 6 months only to find that my total cholesterol only dropped minimally. My body just produces too much. I now eat a sensable diet. (I deprive myself of nothing.) I take a low dose statin, and have also added a fish oil supplement to my diet. My total cholesteral is now 177. My HDL, LDL and triglicerides are all at the proper levels. Hoping to try to reduce my statins even more.

France's cholesterol levels are 220-230 and they have the lowest incident of heart disease in Europe......just thought I'd throw that your way.