Healthy diet to reduce cholesterol

Here are the facts!

Click on the blue arrows if you want references to the scientific literature

1 Cholesterol is not a deadly poison, but a substance vital to the cells of all mammals. There are no such things as good or bad cholesterol, but mental stress, physical activity and change of body weight may influence the level of blood cholesterol. A high cholesterol is not dangerous by itself, but may reflect an unhealthy condition, or it may be totally innocent.

2 A high blood cholesterol is said to promote atherosclerosis and thus also coronary heart disease. But many studies have shown that people whose blood cholesterol is low become just as atherosclerotic as people whose cholesterol is high.

3 Your body produces three to four times more cholesterol than you eat. The production of cholesterol increases when you eat little cholesterol and decreases when you eat much. This explains why the ”prudent” diet cannot lower cholesterol more than on average a few per cent.

4 There is no evidence that too much animal fat and cholesterol in the diet promotes atherosclerosis or heart attacks. For instance, more than twenty studies have shown that people who have had a heart attack haven't eaten more fat of any kind than other people, and degree of atherosclerosis at autopsy is unrelated with the diet.

5 The only effective way to lower cholesterol is with drugs, but neither heart mortality or total mortality have been improved with drugs the effect of which is cholesterol-lowering only. On the contrary, these drugs are dangerous to your health and may shorten your life.

6 The new cholesterol-lowering drugs, the statins, do prevent cardio-vascular disease, but this is due to other mechanisms than cholesterol-lowering. Unfortunately, they also stimulate cancer in rodents, disturb the functions of the muscles, the heart and the brain and pregnant women taking statins may give birth to children with malformations more severe than those seen after thalidomide.

7 Many of these facts have been presented in scientific journals and books for decades but are rarely told to the public by the proponents of the diet-heart idea.

8 The reason why laymen, doctors and most scientists have been misled is because opposing and disagreeing results are systematically ignored or misquoted in the scientific press.

9 The Benefits Of High Cholesterol

Just want to add that I am claiming nothing other than what worked for me... (other diets are available!!)

Another thing to add polyunsaturated fatty acids found in nuts keep the blood vessels healthy.

Hi Sara

If I read it correctly, I think Grokette's advice is very dangerous and is absolutely 180 degrees about from the facts. As someone who has had high cholestrol, had heart issues, and now has low cholestrol and a healthy heart, I might feel I can safely state that!

As for how to lower cholestrol, I would suggest a low meat, high veg diet. I followed no particular diet other than to reduce my fat intake and let my body burn off the cholestrol in my arteries in the process. Mine dropped from 8.6 to 4.4 by doing this. And I lost a load of weight, too. All without using statins, as well.

Happy to talk further if you want.

Good luck with your test!

Richard

Another thing to add polyunsaturated fatty acids found in nuts keep the blood vessels healthy.

PUFAS are not heart healthy and cause inflammation. Saturated and monounsaturated fats are the fats that we should be eating and staying far, far away from polyunsaturated fats.

Vegetables oils (pufas) are a processed food and should be removed from our eating plans, especially if heart health is in question.

Thanks I learned something