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New model could explain old cholesterol mystery

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51–60 of 148 posts

Re: New model could explain old cholesterol mystery

#51
post #44

I'm glad to see new approaches to this problem being discussed, because even after researching about lipids for quite awhile, I was unable to come to a full conclusion on them myself. There's so many confounding variables, and attempting to control for all of them just isn't really feasible in an RCT (not to mention most studies are correlational and nowhere near an RCT to begin with). I think it's likely the case th…

I believe the focus on LDL as 'bad' has been misguided. It's an improvement from 'all cholesterol is bad', but we just don't understand very much about how it all works, and so as we discover more, we slowly refine our understanding.

A lot of the theory about why LDL is 'bad' is based on the fact that arterial damage is repaired with the stuff, causing plaque. There's no evidence that LDL is causing the damage, just that it has a role in how it's fixed (in an ultimately detrimental way).

Re: New model could explain old cholesterol mystery

#52
I can't help but think that there is active effort to halt our understanding of nutrition. I mean, if we still can't say at least that saturated fat is causally related to heart disease, then this whole field is in a very bad place. My hypothesis though, is that this finding has already been established but people keep coming back to this subject to try to adjust it to their lifestyle choices.

Re: New model could explain old cholesterol mystery

#53
The idea that it is inflammation, not cholesterol, that is causing heart disease, is not new. See here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2008-04-15/heart-dis...

Also see collection of links at bottom of this article: https://medium.com/@petilon/cholesterol-and-statins-e7d9d8ee...

Cholesterol reduction is big business. Pfizer’s Lipitor alone raked in $125 billion between 1996 to 2012. This amount of money can be very corrupting. It’s almost impossible to find experts who are not influenced by money from industry.

Re: New model could explain old cholesterol mystery

#54

I find this article quite fascinating. It provides a bit of a glimpse into how science can work, and how difficult it is to gain valid knowledge on some topics. It's also a reminder that "science" isn't just a simple process that you follow to find the truth. Sometimes people ask the wrong question, or draw the wrong conclusion from experiments. It seems that research related to nutrition and health has a fair amount…

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Re: New model could explain old cholesterol mystery

#55
post #36
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my family all the cooking/frying is done with clarified butter. Butter, cheese, definitely no margarine/crisco, plant oil only for salads. So far no cardiovascular problems.

The interesting side effect to me here is using butter one might keep the cooking temperatures a little bit lower. Butter burns at a lower temp than many plant oils.

The solids in butter are what burn quickly. Clarified butter burns at 230°C, which is at the higher end of cooking oil smoke points.

Re: New model could explain old cholesterol mystery

#56
High cholesterol, low thyroid function. Simple, but the details and how this maps to lifestyle and diet changes it gets very tricky. That's why we have vegan and vegetarians with high cholesterol, (extremely hard to keep a healthy metabolism, let alone on a plant-based diet, most people confuse the temporary surge in stress hormones with an sustainably energetic metabolism.)

Re: New model could explain old cholesterol mystery

#58

The idea that animal products are unhealthy seems to be misguided. It seems more likely that the supposedly "heart healthy" seed oils are causing heart disease. The Carnivore Code has some very good insights (at least in my opinion) [1] And this talk on how seed oils are destroying our health is also pretty interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kGnfXXIKZM [1] https://www.amazon.com/Carnivore-Code-Unlocking-Re…

It's what the science says so far. It's amazing that since there are gaps in our knowledge people readily jump over to woo woo fad diets.

If the epic, explosive scale of obesity, diabetes and heart disease under the modern government recommended high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet doesn't give you pause, then.... I just don't know what to say.

Re: New model could explain old cholesterol mystery

#59
post #5

I am close with someone who has chronic high cholesterol, in addition to a 6-pack abs. She exercises 5x/week and eats .5kg of animal products/week at most, usually white meat. She just visited her heart Dr and was told that her cholesterol is too high and that she needs to cut out animal products entirely as a next step. I am thinking...is this really the modern answer to someone's high cholesterol if they consistent…

I'm in a similar situation (granted, I do eat meat 5-6 days a week). And I have no idea what to do about it except go vegan. I suppose there's a genetic component, as no man in my known family lineage has made it past 60.

My paternal grandfather and great grandfather both died of cardiac arrest in their 50s. My Dad has always had high cholesterol but went on drugs as soon as they were available - first Niacin, then statins. He's still doing great at 75 and very much thinks the pills are to thank.

Re: New model could explain old cholesterol mystery

#60
post #3

This is why I have three things I never trust the experts in. - How to be healthy - How to educate - How to raise kids It seems like every decade we find out everything we did last decade was bad and wrong but now we've finally for sure got it figured out, and this time we know we are right because we have fancier gadgets and more citations in our name. From Frued to the Food Pyramid it seems that the experts always…

You're describing several feedback loops that are decades long to test. I suspect that's why they all have problems with conclusive results.
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