Monday, September 22, 2008

And now the other side . . .

I get all this bad news about my cholesterol levels and then . . . I receive a little advertising booklet by Dr. William Campbell Douglass II, M.D., called The Biggest Medical Lie of the Last 50 Years.
More than 50 years of evidence involving thousands of patients PROVES that your cholesterol count isn't your biggest worry. . . .

Cholesterol is so important that every cell in the human body needs it. And which of your organs has the highest concentration of cholesterol? Your brain! That's right, your brain is loaded with this supposedly deadly stuff. But when it comes to making cholesterol, your liver is the main "factory."

In fact, your own liver makes most of the cholesterol that's detected by blood tests. That's why changing what you eat causes almost NO change in your cholesterol count. Your liver just produces more cholesterol to make up for what you don't get in your diet.

When people try strict diets, a small number, called "high respondent" can lower their blood cholesterol by about 10 percent. The rest of us can totally give up saturated fat and cut calories like crazy, but we'll see only a 5 or 6 percent drop in cholesterol.

That's because your body needs cholesterol and your liver fights back when you try to take it away. All the diet does is make you deficient in a nutrient you need. Study after study proves high cholesterol is associated with longer life.

Yes, that's right. You can live longer if you have high cholesterol. . . .

If your cholesterol is too low, you could be in trouble. Low cholesterol is one of the most accurate signs of bad health ever found. . . . Because in the government's own Framingham study, older people with the lowest cholesterol levels had some of the highest death rates. . . .

Mainstream doctors tell us we should try to get our cholesterol below 200. Their advice is absolutely crazy. Here's the truth . . .

Elderly people with low cholesterol die more often from a heart attack compared to old people with high cholesterol. That's what a Yale University doctor found. His name was Harlan Krumholz. . . . His findings were even published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The truth is even more shocking
if you look beyond heart disease

A recent study shows that death from all causes--not just heart disease--is lower among elderly people with high cholesterol.

It's not just old people, either. Among people of all ages, low cholesterol is connected to a higher risk of death from gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases. That discovery came out of 19 studies involving 68,000 people.

You want more proof? I've got it.

Another research team kept track of 100,000 healthy people for 15 years. They discovered that folks with low cholesterol were more likely to catch serious infections— the kind that send you to a hospital.

And University of Minnesota scientists found that low cholesterol actually INCREASES your risk of certain infections like pneumonia or AIDS.

Low cholesterol is a death warrant

An article in the European Heart Journal confirms that low cholesterol is dangerous to your health. Examining 11,500 patients, they found those with cholesterol below 160 were more than twice as likely to die than those with high cholesterol.

And here's something very interesting: The number of deaths from heart disease was the same in both groups--but the low-cholesterol group had far more cancer deaths. . . .

Low cholesterol is linked to cancer

The medical community has known for years that low cholesterol is linked to cancer. A big French study in 1980 revealed that the cancer rate climbs steadily as cholesterol levels fall below 200.

But, this is exactly the range the heart experts tell us to aim for! We're supposed to take drugs till we get our cholesterol below 200. . . .

Way back in 1987, the National Cancer Institute was intrigued enough to back a big study of 12,488 men and women. They found that men with the lowest cholesterol levels were more likely to get cancer than those with the highest levels. The article appeared in The Lancet, one of the world's most prestigious medical journals.

The guys behind this study were basically right across the hall at the National Institutes of Health from the heart "experts" who were telling the world to take cholesterol drugs.

The heart researchers ignored the evidence

They were too proud to change their minds. And maybe—just maybe—money had something to do with it. (Gosh! You think?) Cholesterol reduction is now a $20-billion-a-year industry.

The whole cholesterol scare was cooked up by a tiny handful of powerful doctors at prestigious institutions. They crammed it down the throats of the whole medical profession, over the objections of their own advisors and a majority of practicing doctors.

And leading cholesterol "experts" collected fat payments from drug companies all the way.

Yeah.

And, of course, Douglass keeps going.

Now I have to follow through on his references, cryptic as they may be.

*******

While I'm on the subject, I might as well reference some additional articles that seem to advocate the same positions as Dr. Douglass.

For example: The Truth About Cholesterol:
Only 7% of cholesterol is in the blood. The other 93% is located in every cell of the body, where its unique, waxy soapy consistency provides the cells with their structural integrity. Because cholesterol’s unique structure makes it impossible to dissolve in water, it forms a crucial component of the membrane surrounding every cell. Cholesterol acts to interlock lipid molecules, which stabilise our cell walls. The presence of cholesterol in the fatty double layer of the cell wall membrane adjusts the fluid level and rigidity to the proper value needed for both cell stability and function. Therefore, cholesterol is a vital building block and structural component for all bodily tissues.

The highest concentration of cholesterol is found in the brain and nerve cells. Most notably, cholesterol is an essential part of the myelin sheath, which allows neurons to conduct impulses necessary to communicate with each other. The myelin sheath, similar to the coating on copper wire, ensures that the nervous system functions properly by aiding the passage of electrical impulses. Cholesterol is the ‘synaptogenic factor,’ responsible for the development of highly specialised contact sites between adjacent neurons in the brain, known as synapses. (Announced in 2001 by researchers from the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science)

The formation of synapses is necessary for learning and the formation of memory. Cholesterol has been found to be the rate-limiting factor in the formation of synapse, Cholesterol not only helps guide the connecting parts of neurons to the right places, but is necessary for their ability to grow in the first place. The brain cannot tap the cholesterol in the blood, since lipoproteins, that mediate the transport of cholesterol, are too large to pass the blood-brain-barrier. The glial cells in the brain therefore produce their own cholesterol, to provide nerve cells with this vital component.

Cholesterol has beneficial effects on the immune system. Men with high cholesterol levels have stronger immune systems, than those with low cholesterol, as can be seen by the fact that they have more lymphocytes, total T-cells, helper T-cells and CD8+ cells. Researchers have also identified cholesterol as an inactivator/neutriliser of multiple bacterial toxins.

Further, many strains of disease-causing bacteria, are almost totally inactivated by Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (Ravnskov 2003; Quarterly J of Medicine; 96)

Cholesterol, or more precisely 7-dehydrocholesterol, is the precursor to Vitamin D. Vitamin D has long been recognised for its role in maintaining calcium balance and promoting bone health. More recently it is becoming known for a wide range of other functions, including the maintenance of mental health, a strong immune system, blood sugar regulation and the prevention of cancer.

Cholesterol also acts as an anti-oxidant, protecting cell membranes from free radical damage. . . .

Where does one get truth?
blog comments powered by Disqus