Monthly Boost June 2008

So let’s just ask a simple question here, where is the link between heart disease and cholesterol?....Well there actually is NO sound scientific evidence to link high cholesterol to an increase in heart disease. Now some of you may be disturbed by this especially if you have been recommended to cut out foods believed to be rich in cholesterol or if you are on cholesterol lowering medication…but before the disturbance turns into denial or a manifestation of anger, do take time to read on, it may just save your brain cells and health.

Cholesterol isn't the enemy, although we have some of the medical profession obsessed with it. In fact, without cholesterol, you would die in a matter of days if not within hours. Also when we are ‘stressed’ our cholesterol will go up because our stress hormone cortisol comes from cholesterol. In other words the more stressed we are, the more cholesterol our body makes in order to make more cortisol. Still with me?

It is known that ‘stressful’ events such as putting a hand-cuff around the arm prior to taking a blood sample or fear of the needle can result in raised cholesterol values!

If we put aside the above for now, but concentrate on the false belief that high cholesterol causes heart disease…then how do we explain the following findings…

• In people with under active thyroids who have high cholesterol levels there is no increase in the incidence of coronary heart disease (in very basic terms coronary heart disease is caused by 'disease' of the coronary arteries that feed the heart)
• People with nephritic syndrome (damage to kidneys) have high cholesterol but there is no increase in coronary heart disease either
• A study led by Dr. Tamara Horwich at UCLA, of more than a thousand patients with severe heart failure, found that after five years 62 percent of the patients with lower cholesterol (below 129 mg/l) had died but only half as many of the patients with higher cholesterol (above 223 mg/l) died
• In Japan coronary heart disease is uncommon, supposedly due to the lean Japanese diet. There is a pretty ‘famous’ study that shows that once these people moved to the USA the incidence of heart disease increased in this population. The increased heart mortality following migration was not associated with the diet or the serum cholesterol, but with the cultural upbringing!

My simple message here is that we have totally ‘lost the plot’ in trying to reduce cholesterol levels. Of course having high cholesterol does indicate the body is trying to ‘deal’ with something but it is not the ‘villain’. If anything it is the ‘healing’ agent. Why else would our own body produce 80% of it?

So next time you visit a health practitioner who encourages you to reduce your cholesterol levels through either some pharmaceutical drug or through some non sense low fat diet or even natural supplements (be they herbal, nutritional or homeopathic for that matter)…ask them ‘If cholesterol is a healing agent (and having high cholesterol your body is trying to ‘deal’ with an underlying imbalance) why try and bring it down, is it not more important to address the cause of why cholesterol is elevated? ..asking this question may just save you from long term ill health

Next month I will be introducing you to the so-called ‘artery clogging’ theory and the real causes of heart disease…

In the meantime be kind to your cholesterol!

To great health!

Khush