Higher Cholesterol Levels
This is contrary to what we have been led to believe!
March 6th, 2018
By Dr. Joseph Mercola
Contributing writer for Wake Up World
This is contrary to what we have been led to believe!
The Big Fat Surprise — Higher Cholesterol Levels Associated with Better Health
March 6th, 2018
By Dr. Joseph Mercola
Contributing writer for Wake Up World
Saturated Fat and Cholesterol are Important Parts of a Healthy Diet
Saturated fat and cholesterol have been
wrongfully vilified as the culprits of heart disease for more than six
decades. Meanwhile, research has repeatedly identified refined carbs,
sugar and trans fats found in processed foods as the real enemy.
The first scientific evidence linking trans fats to heart disease while exonerating saturated fats was published in 1957 by the late Fred Kummerow,1 biochemist and author of “Cholesterol Is Not the Culprit: A Guide to Preventing Heart Disease.” Unfortunately, Kummerow’s science was overshadowed by Ancel Keys’ Seven Countries Study,2,3 which
linked saturated fat intake with heart disease. The rest, as they say,
is history. Later reanalysis revealed cherry-picked data was responsible
for creating Keys’ link, but by then the saturated fat myth was already
firmly entrenched.
Keys’ biased research launched the
low-fat myth and reshaped the food industry for decades to come. As
saturated fat and cholesterol were shunned, the food industry switched
to using sugar and trans fats (found in margarine, vegetable shortening
and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils) instead.
The Big Fat Surprise
Investigative journalist Nina Teicholz
was one of the first major investigative journalists to break the story
on the dangers of trans fats in a 2004 Gourmet magazine article.4 In the video below, Joe Rogan interviews Teicholz on her 2014 book, “The Big Fat Surprise,” which grew out of that initial exposé.
In it, not only does she dismantle the
belief that saturated fat and cholesterol make you fat and cause
disease, she also reveals that while the dangers of trans fats are now
becoming widely recognized, the recommended replacement — vegetable oils
— may actually be even more harmful. She also delves into the politics
and shady underbelly of nutritional science, revealing how the food
industry has manipulated the scientific discussion and built a largely
false foundation for the nutritional recommendations we’re given.
Corruption is not the sole problem,
though. Teicholz notes there is a very strong tendency to “fall in love”
with your own ideas and beliefs, and this is as true for scientists as
it is for regular people. And, when you strongly believe something to be
true, you will tend to find the evidence you’re looking for and ignore
anything that refutes it. So, it’s really a human psychology problem.
Scientists are not supposed to fall into
this all-too-human trap. “They’re taught to distrust their beliefs
[and] shoot down their own hypothesis,” Teicholz says, “but in the case
of nutrition science, that didn’t happen … They cherry-picked the
evidence and completely ignored and actively suppressed, even, anything
that contradicted their ideas.” This certainly included Keys, who was
passionately wed to his hypothesis that saturated fat caused heart
disease.
Busting the Low-Fat Myth
Teicholz points out the fact that
saturated fat has been a healthy human staple for thousands of years,
and how the low-fat craze has resulted in massive sugar consumption that
has increased inflammation and disease.5 The American Heart
Association (AHA) started encouraging Americans to limit dietary fat,
particularly animal fats, to reduce their risk of heart disease in 1961,
and maintains this position to this day.
Just last summer, the AHA sent out a presidential advisory to cardiologists around the world, reiterating its 1960s advice to replace butter and coconut oil with
margarine and vegetable oils to protect against heart disease. Yet
historical data clearly shows this strategy is not working, because
concomitant with low-fat diets becoming the cultural norm, heart disease
rates have soared. The AHA also ignores research demonstrating the
low-fat, low-cholesterol strategy does more harm than good. For example:
- In 2012, researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology examined the health and lifestyle habits of more than 52,000 adults ages 20 to 74, concluding that lower cholesterol levels increase women’s risk for heart disease, cardiac arrest and stroke. Overall, women with “high cholesterol” (greater than 270 mg/dl) actually had a 28 percent lower mortality risk than women with “low cholesterol” (less than 183 mg/dl).6
- In 2013, prominent London cardiologist Aseem Malhotra argued in the British Medical Journal that you should ignore advice to reduce your saturated fat intake, because it’s actually increasing your risk for obesity and heart disease.7
- A 2014 meta-analysis published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, using data from nearly 80 studies and more than a half-million people, found those who consume higher amounts of saturated fat have no more heart disease than those who consume less. They also did not find less heart disease among those eating higher amounts of unsaturated fat, including both olive oil and corn oil.8,9
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