The Truth About Cholesterol

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How can a substance called cholesterol, a molecule that our bodies makes and requires for many important functions, be the big bad boogeyman that the medical community says it is?

If you did not read my last post, Have We Been Lied To All These Years, you may want to read it now before you go any further. In the Seven Country Study, Ancel Keys came to a conclusion with the data that he gathered, that excess cholesterol caused heart disease and saturated fat consumption caused the high levels of cholesterol. Although this hypothesis has never been proven, it still continues to be the narrative we are told.

Ancel Keys himself actually wrote in 1954 before the study was completed that

“the cholesterol content, per se, of all natural diets has not significant effect on the serum cholesterol level or the development of atherosclerosis in man”

Yet, still pushed through his conclusion of saturated fat, cholesterol and heart disease. Maybe we need to actually look at the result of this conclusion and who really benefited from it. Was it the public or was it the food industry and the pharmaceutical industry who developed certain results and then provided certain medications to help maintain those results and ranges.???

What is Cholesterol? Do You Know What it Does in Our Body?

Cholesterol is an ESSENTIAL molecule important to life. Every cell in our body requires it. It is a major structural molecule on which other substances are made. (bile acids, vitamin D, steroid hormones, sex hormones)

It is naturally made in our bodies yet doctors prescribe drugs to prevent it natural synthesis.

Cholesterol for Hormones

Cholesterol is the key component to cortisol and all our sex hormones (estrogen, progesterone, testosterone). Lets think about all those who now suffer from hormone imbalances and the need for synthetic hormone therapies.

Cholesterol for Digestion

Bile acids are important for the digestion of fat and these acids are made from cholesterol and secreted into bile. Our body holds onto most of our bile and after it is used to digest fat, it is reabsorbed back into the liver. Although some bile is lost in feces. So because our body knows that we lose bile acids, it makes more daily in the liver. It makes between 1500 and 2000 mg of cholesterol daily which is 7 to 10 times more cholesterol than we get from one egg. Hmm. My thought is if our cholesterol levels are high, maybe we should be looking at our liver health and not the food we are eating.

Cholesterol for Cell Membranes

Cholesterol is an important component in the membranes of the brain, nervous system (spinal cord, nerves). It is a major part on the myelin sheath which insulates the nerve fibers and facilitates nerve impulse transmissions. Think about the higher rates of dementias, alzheimer’s disease that is now plaguing our elderly community.

Cholesterol and Vitamin D

Vitamin D (which is actually a hormone) is made from cholesterol. When we lower our cholesterol levels, it is shown to negatively effect our Vitamin D levels. Vitamin D is used for so many functions in our body - bone health, muscle health, mental health, immune system. Vitamin D is linked to cancer prevention as well as other diseases and disorders. Low vitamin D is a chronic issue as many people are not getting enough direct sunlight and are using sunscreen more liberally.

When your skin is exposed to sunlight, it makes vitamin D from cholesterol. The sun’s ultraviolet B (UVB) rays hit cholesterol in the skin cells, providing the energy for vitamin D synthesis to occur.

We do not get enough sunlight daily anymore, we are sitting inside more, and when we do go outside, many slather themselves with sunscreen at levels of 60+ SPF allowing no sun to hit their skin. No cholesterol, no sun, no Vitamin D

So as you can see cholesterol is very important to our health, yet we are suppressing it with statins because of a blood range that may not be in the ‘normal’ range. But what exactly is normal? And is it all about the cholesterol?

Consuming Foods with Cholesterol

Did you know that our bodies are unable to absorb all the cholesterol we get from our food. Anywhere from 75% to 90% of cholesterol from food is not absorbed by our bodies, this does vary per person. And why is that? Cholesterol comes in 2 forms - attached and unattached. Cholesterol that has attached itself to another molecule is esterfied. Unattached cholesterol is free cholesterol. The body can only use unesterfied or free cholesterol and most of what we get from food is esterfied. Food from animal products are high in cholesterol (eggs, meat, organ met, full fat dairy products).

Cholesterol can not travel alone in the bloodstream because it is hydrophobic (water avoiding), so it attaches itself to a lipoprotein. (low density lipoprotein LDL or high density lipoprotein). This explains why the cholesterol in our food is not absorbable as it is already attached or esterfied.

Cholesterol is a Catch All

We tend to call this whole package cholesterol when it also contains triglycerides and proteins. LDL is comprised of approximately 25% protein, 30% triglycerides and 50% cholesterol. HDL is approximately 35% protein, 30% cholesterol and 8% triglycerides.

So conventional lab tests only test the cholesterol in our blood when there is so much to more. Why are we not looking at the triglycerides? Well we can go back to Ancel Keys and how he collected his data. At the time, it was easy and inexpensive to test for cholesterol in a blood test and this them became the norm.

Many functional medicine doctors are now looking at the triglycerides to HDL ratio as the real key to heart disease. You want your HDL to triglyceride ration to be less than 2.

Did you know that cholesterol was so important for so many essential reactions in our bodies? I do strongly believe that there is a strong correlation to cholesterol levels and all the other issues that are coming to the forefront of health right now. I also believe that a narrative and fear was pushed upon us for gain of money and power.

Please do not fear the fat or in this case - the cholesterol.

For more reading on this subject, I strongly recommend The Great Cholesterol Myth. - Jonny Bowden and Stephen Sinatra.

Always open to your thoughts and comments.

Danni