by Deirdre Rawlings, N.D., Ph.D.
and Scott Rollins, M.D.
Grand Junction Free Press
More than 16 percent of U.S. adults have high cholesterol, defined as 240 mg/dL and above, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even the average level for Americans, 200 mg/dL, is borderline high, they say.
This high cholesterol, public health agencies say, is putting people at an increased risk of heart disease, the leading cause of death in the U.S. This stated “fact” scares millions of Americans into take statin cholesterol-lowering drugs to get their levels as low as possible … but what if this “fact” was actually not true?
DOES CHOLESTEROL CAUSE HEART DISEASE?
Cholesterol is actually an essential part of your body, used to produce cell membranes, steroid hormones, vitamin D and the bile acids your body needs to digest fat. Your brain needs cholesterol to function properly, as does your immune system, and if a cell becomes damaged, it needs cholesterol in order to be repaired.
In fact, making excess cholesterol is actually your body’s response to inflammation, which it does to help heal and repair your cells. So if you have high cholesterol you probably have high inflammation levels too (more on this later).
Many Americans are under the mistaken impression that all cholesterol is bad, but in reality cholesterol is good for your body and necessary for you to live. Unfortunately, the “lipid hypothesis” (aka the “diet-heart hypothesis”), the one that claims foods high in saturated fats drive up your cholesterol levels, which clog your arteries and lead to heart disease, is widely accepted and has helped to spread the misinformation about cholesterol throughout the public.
But the lipid hypothesis is actually seriously flawed.
In his book “The Cholesterol Myths,” Uffe Ravnskov, M.D., Ph.D., explained that Ancel Keys, who performed the study upon which the Lipid Hypothesis is based, used cherry-picked data to prove his point that countries with the highest intake of animal fat have the highest rates of heart disease.
Ravnskov revealed that the countries used in the study were handpicked, and those that did NOT show that eating a lot of animal fat lead to higher rates of heart disease were left out of the study, leading to entirely skewed, and faulty, data.
DOES THIS MEAN YOU CAN EAT EGGS AGAIN?
If you’ve been shunning eggs because you fear they will raise your cholesterol, you needn’t avoid this healthy protein source any longer.
For starters, eating cholesterol is not what gives you high cholesterol. According to the Harvard Heart Letter, it’s a myth that all the cholesterol in eggs goes into your bloodstream and your arteries.
“For most people, only a small amount of the cholesterol in food passes into the blood,” the Heart Letter states. “The only large study to look at the impact of egg consumption on heart disease — not on cholesterol levels or other intermediaries — found no connection between the two.”
Eggs are also an excellent source of healthy nutrients, including choline, a B vitamin that may help reduce your risk of heart disease, cancer, dementia and more. Egg yolks also provide the most readily absorbed form of lutein, a yellow-hued carotenoid that may help fight everything from cancer and cataracts to macular degeneration and aging.
For more information, be sure to read “The Truth About Eggs: How to Tell the Good From the Bad.”
WHAT IS ACTUALLY HIGH WHEN IT COMES TO CHOLESTEROL?
Not only does evidence suggest that saturated fat does not cause heart disease by way of high cholesterol, but there is considerable questioning of what actually constitutes “high” cholesterol in the first place.
The American Heart Association states, “About half of American adults have levels that are too high (200 mg/dL or higher) and about 1 in 5 has a level in the high-risk zone (240 mg/dL or higher).”
But according to lipid biochemistry expert Mary Enig, Ph.D. in the Weston A. Price Foundation quarterly magazine:
“Blood cholesterol levels between 200 and 240 mg/dl are normal. These levels have always been normal. In older women, serum cholesterol levels greatly above these numbers are also quite normal, and in fact they have been shown to be associated with longevity.
“Since 1984, however, in the United States and other parts of the western world, these normal numbers have been treated as if they were an indication of a disease in progress or a potential for disease in the future.”
What this means is that many Americans may be taking statin cholesterol-lowering drugs unnecessarily, believing their cholesterol is dangerously high when it is not. Be sure to read next week’s column on “What Your Doctor Didn’t Tell You about Cholesterol: Statin Drugs.”
For more information on preventing, detecting or naturally treating heart disease attend Dr. Rollins’ seminar on “Heart Health: Better Screening, Better Treatment” offered at the IMC.
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Deirdre Rawlings is a board certified naturopathic doctor with the American Naturopathic Medical Association, a Master Herbalist, a Certified Sports Nutritionist, a Certified Health & Wellness Coach and she holds a Ph.D. in Holistic Nutrition from Clayton College of Natural Health. She is affiliated with the Integrative Medicine Center of Western Colorado (www.imcwc.com). Visit her website at www.FoodsforFibromyalgia.com.
Scott Rollins, M.D., is board certified with the American Board of Family Practice and the American Board of Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine. He is founder and medical director of the Integrative Medicine Center of Western Colorado (www.imcwc.com). Call (970) 245-6911 for an appointment or more information.
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