How Lowering your Cholesterol Destroys your Health

Prior to turning 50 I actively worked to reduce my cholesterol levels by reducing my animal fat intake and generally following a modern "Heart Healthy" diet as promoted by medical authorities including the Heart Foundation.

In hindsight, this was a bad move: My cholesterol levels continued to rise, I started having to get up in the middle of the night to pee, my running became laboured and painful and I was increasingly depressed about my work! I suffered cold hands and feet even in summer. Most disturbing of all; I was getting skin cancers all over the place.

The last couple of years have seen a dramatic reversal of this pathetic and disturbing decline which I depressingly assumed was signaling the onset of old age! I switched back to animal fats, including full fat dairy, eggs and meat. For the last year or so we have been drinking raw full fat milk (predominantly Type A-2).

The last four years has seen a steady and delightful improvement in my health. My cholesterol levels have dropped a little for the first time in 20 years.

Astonishing! My skin cancers have all disappeared, I no longer get up to pee in the middle of the night. I am running and cycling as fast and as long as I did 20 years ago. Oh - and libido is cranking along on all 8 cylinders!

For a good rundown about the biochemistry of cholesterol and its role in the body for the production of hormones like estrogen and testosterone and also how to combat inflammation, please click on the presentation in the upper left of this article. You may need to pause the presentation in places to read the slides properly.

I do not advocate a high fat, high meat diet
When reading these slides, please bear in mind that I am not advocating a high meat diet like the Atkins Diet or anything near that. while we eat a wide variety of meat, fish, eggs and dairy these are not in excess by any measures. Our family diet is rich in vegetables nuts, berries and fruit. Grains tend to be whole and little sugar is consumed other than that found in juices and honey.

The most important point to take from this presentation is the importance of adequate cholesterol for health, including the production of hormones that drive the body's processes.

In my opinion a total cholesterol level of between 4-5.5 4 mmol/L is just fine. Higher or lower and health may be at risk. If your levels are creeping up despite a low cholesterol diet, the reason may be partly due to lack of sunshine on your body! UVB radiation convert cholesterol into cholecalciferol. And cholecalciferol (vitamin d) combines with LDL cholesterol to form steroidal hormones. Gun this process up and cholesterol is put to good use!

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Vitamin K Linked To Insulin Resistance In Older Men

ScienceDaily (Nov. 26, 2008) — Vitamin K slowed the development of insulin resistance in elderly men in a study of 355 non-diabetic men and women ages 60 to 80 who completed a three-year clinical trial at the Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University (USDA HNRCA).

...."Men who received vitamin K supplementation had less progression in their insulin resistance by the end of the clinical trial," said Sarah Booth, senior author and director of the Vitamin K Laboratory at the USDA HNRCA. "Conversely, we saw progression in insulin resistance in women who received vitamin K supplementation, and in the men or women who were not given vitamin K supplements."....

Although vitamin K supplements were used for the study, the authors say the study dosage is attainable by consuming a healthy diet. Foods considered good sources of vitamin K include brussels sprouts, broccoli, and dark, leafy greens, such as spinach and collards.
___________________________

Gary:

Vitamin K is one of the least understood of all the vitamins.  It has a growing list of benefits from maintaining healthy bones, regulating blood clotting, preventing varicose veins, keeping skin supple and strong and slowing or halting insulin resistance.

Let's turn our attention to the study referred to above....

I wonder why there was no measurable benefit for older women?  Let me speculate:

Vitamin K is a fat soluble vitamin.  Without fat, its uptake into the body and its being put to good use within the trillion or so cells of the body is compromised.  Is the simple explanation due to the fact that men tend to consume more fat than women regardless of age?  Without a decent amount of fat in the gut and in the blood as vitamin K supplement is probably of little health benefit.

The fat free diet - The Kiss of Death

I have been working on people to various degrees for some 30 years now and one disturbing trend is the increasing number of women presenting at an increasingly younger age with cracking bones, turkey neck skin and proliferating varicose veins.  I attribute this to the pushing of the fat free diet with religious zeal by the food industry and most health experts.  It is increasingly evident that the fat free diet is the cause of enormous harm to the population.

Fat Free = No Fat Soluble Vitamins (A,D,E & K)

Eat your Greens!

Sure, leafy greens - spinach and brocolli are rich sources of Vitamin K1; but they are no good steamed.  They should be cooked in clarified butter or coconut oil so that when the cells burst open with the heat, the vitamin K is dissolved into the fat before ingestion.

And what about the more important vitamin K2?  Vitamin K2 is found in fatty foods.  The most convenient may be blue vein cheese.  To learn more about vitamin K-rich foods, please go here.

Wishing you healthy eating!

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Is 99% Fat Free Food Healthy Food?

Go to the supermarket, read the Heart Healthy Guidelines and there is no doubt that the best foods to eat are the 99% fat free ones. But is this really the truth about healthy eating?

Well, the answer is a definite "No!" A food that is fat reduced is not good for you. Take milk for example: The best milk nutritionally, is whole raw milk. Processing milk from pasteurisation to homogenisation and fat reduction progressively reduces its nutritional value. Take the fat out and you lose the essential fatty acids that your body must have to thrive. Take out the fat and even if the fat soluble vitamins are added back in, the ability of the body to uptake these vitamins is seriously compromised.

This is why I question the health claims of fat reduced. fat soluble vitamin fortified milks like Anlene.

But what about all the fat in full cream milk, you might ask? Well, the answer is simple: Drink less in a sitting. Better still, drink raw A2 milk (if you can find it) and there is little documented risks and plenty of health benefits from having this kind of milk (A2 milk is the milk one finds in "Old World" cattle in places like India and Africa; whereas the modern dairy herd has a predominance of a mutant protein called "A1" which is known to have a number of harmful properties).

But isn't cholesterol bad for you? The fact is human life cannot exist without cholesterol. Cholesterol is essential for every cell. It gives cells their water-proofing and it is the building blocks for our hormones. Interfere with cholesterol metabolism and we shrivel and die. A man without cholesterol is without his manhood. Cholesterol is not a problem if your body is suplied with good quality fats and is able to properly use it. If the fats are poor quality and if they just float around in the blood stream with nowhere to go, then they might just decide to go rancid and stick to the artery walls (Fat soluble vitamins help prevent fats, including cholesterol from going rancid, by the way). But you need to have fat in your diet to get the fat soluble vitamins! You just can't win if you mess the food.

For linking through to an interesting series of articles about cholesterol and health, I have just received this article a few hours after writing this one.

So, stick to the most natural and the least processed foods. Buy raw foods and cook at home. Eat a wide variety of least processed foods. Do not be sucked in by commercially motivated health advice. 99% Fat Free = the Kiss of Death.



Do you have a question?
Email Gary: gary at myotec.co.nz (Replace the "at" with @ and remove spaces). Please include any relevant background information to your question.