Why We Don't Really Like Talking About Cholesterol At All
It brings about doom and gloom — worse still when we don’t understand the fundamental mechanisms behind its operation!
Cholesterol is one of those words that people dread discussing as they grow older. Beyond the obvious implications of heart attacks or strokes, the whole issue behind that C word starts at the doctor’s office.
All it needs is ONE blood test to show an elevated low density lipoprotein (LDL) concentration in the blood to set things off in motion.
The problem being that there’s so much fear in multiple different arenas:
The physical health aspect, where people may end up being permanently incapacitated by a stroke or a heart attack.
The financial aspect, because healthcare bills don’t come cheap in some countries around the world (and neither do recurring drug prescriptions, for that matter).
The psychological aspect, because it can be quite stressful just thinking about “what if I do get a heart attack”, “what’s going to happen” and so on.
It’s terribly limiting.
Of course, the issue being that most people are only familiar with surface-level knowledge, which further complicates the issue.
What is LDL, for instance?
What is high density lipoprotein (HDL)?
How does all that combine together to force a heart attack or a stroke?
The mechanism is just too darned complex, unfortunately.
But what we do know is that cholesterol is this fat (or oil)-like substance that is a necessary building block for cell membranes in our body. All cells in our body contain membranes, which all do require cholesterol for synthesis.
But as we have seen in the kitchen countless times, oil and water do not mix. We see that in salad dressings too. The oil and water can separate out over time, where the oil ends up floating on top of the water because it has a lower density than water.
In the same way, we cannot expect that the freshly synthesised cholesterol (fat) coming out of the liver can make its way into the blood (water) to the cell without any protective transporter carrier — hence the lipoprotein exists.
Much like a school bag that contains the necessary books and files that a student needs to bring to school, the lipoprotein functions like a carrier bag that the cholesterol molecules are placed in.
In that way, they can enter the blood, and the lipoprotein transports them to various cells for repairing damaged cell membranes and for the synthesis of new cells.
When the lipoprotein is packed full of cholesterol molecules, its density decreases (because oil floats on water, remember?).
Therefore we can call that LDL.
When the lipoprotein has discharged most of its cholesterol cargo, its density increases and we can call that HDL.
Now, HDL will be taking on waste cholesterol to send back to the liver. Therefore, at any point in time, there ought to be a balance between the LDL and HDL in the body if one can regulate their cholesterol levels well.
So of course, we can either be taking in too much dietary cholesterol, or suffering from an inability to eliminate sufficient cholesterol from our bodies.
The symptom of high LDL is therefore something to do with the inability of the lipoproteins to eliminate cholesterol efficiently.
The funny thing about the proposed solutions, however…
They tend to focus heavily on what’s going into our body and rarely on what’s coming out.
And that’s a problem, because we have to look at it both ways.
We accumulate wealth in our bank accounts by ensuring that our income is more than our expenditure. There must be a net positive flow of cash into that account.
In the same way, we accumulate cholesterol in our blood when there is a net positive flow of cholesterol into our body.
When we’re looking at our bank accounts, we will take mental notes of how much we’re earning and how much we’re spending.
However, when we look at cholesterol accumulation, we’d be looking so much more at what we’re putting into our bodies, such as “eggs cause high cholesterol!” or “statin drugs can help to lower cholesterol”, with rarely a thought given to how much we’re actually excreting.
I wonder why.
After all, many people around the world fail to consume sufficient dietary fibre. Not just in the US, but in Australia and the UK as well. And when they aren’t, do you think their cholesterol elimination rates would be sufficient or suboptimal?
Unfortunately, the sales of dietary fibre don’t make much money.
Neither do eggs, for that matter.
But when 35 million Americans are on some form of statin drug treatment for “lowering cholesterol”, we’d see where the flow of money is headed.
It’s much easier to obscure the details and just push a prescription by preying on one’s fear. Somewhat predatory, if you ask me. But that’s what’s best for business.
Because it also doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that massive lifestyle changes are required to bring one’s cholesterol level back to a healthy level — and only then will one be actually confident to come off the statin pill.
Otherwise, one just becomes a recurring subscriber to the drug — albeit unwittingly, of course.
But do you know what’s the cruel irony at the end of the day?
It’s not even the cholesterol that causes a heart attack, but rather a concerted biological activity from macrophages trapped within an atherosclerotic plaque that are attempting to chew their way out of the plaque.
It’s highly pro-inflammatory, and that promotes clotting too.
When the plaque ruptures, the contents that spill out clot almost immediately, then it all becomes a lottery game of where the clot travels to that determines our ultimate fate.
A heart attack is biological in nature. It’s not really something that a manipulation of cholesterol levels in our blood can help with.
But it’s easier to pass a high blood LDL measurement off as the major problem… when it really shouldn’t have been in the first place.
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I historically have high chloresterol.
Total 235 -250
HDL 65-80
LDL 170
with 10 mg Crestor daily I can get total down to ~ 180-200 with changes coming from LDL.
I tried diets in the past to control it, the food was not enjoyable at all and did not help.
So I gave up on diets. I do not have bad diet though, very little processed food, almost no fried food. But I must confess I like fried chicken so I will have 3 or 4 pcs in one splurge each year.
My doctors including my cardiologist talked me into taking Crestor again. I take it maybe 4x per week now.
My father had 4 heart attacks and a quad bypass. He died of late Parkinson's many years later. My brother 3 years older had 4 stints at one time. He waited almost too long to see a doctor. No heart issues with me, my last stress test was good. I just keep up exercise and stay active. I refuse to live in fear of a heart attach.
I eat 1/3 cup of oatmeal, 1/2 - 1 banana, and 1 apple daily plus seasonal fruits as well. My stools are normally smooth. Only have stool issues when I do not drink enough water.