My thanks to all of you that expressed concern for my recent low back adventure. I am on the mend and now am ready to begin rehabilitating my back with balance exercises, stretching, and weight training. I am trying to convince our resident therapeutic massage therapist, Susan McDonald, to begin a stretch and balance class at the office for all the patients that need this for their backs (which means everyone). Such a class would help me with my discipline. I know absolutely how important this is for myself and everyone else, yet somehow life has a way of pulling my attention away from engaging this crucial maintenance of my spinal health. Familiar anyone?
Well this issue I wanted to focus on several articles concerning cholesterol. There is so much bad information out there, that I hope to shed some light on the whole arena. First of all, cholesterol is not a bad guy. It is vital to your health. Most every hormone in your body is made from cholesterol. That is why women on super low fat diets stop having their monthly cycle – not enough hormones. Are you aware that it is dangerous to have cholesterol levels below 140? New studies are showing cholesterol may be protective against Dementia. Every cell wall in your body needs cholesterol. Most importantly for heart disease, cholesterol is your body’s last line of defense in the battle of inflammation caused by oxidizing free radicals.
Cholesterol is a last resort anti-oxidant. When your body has used up its usual anti-oxidants fighting inflammation, it uses cholesterol to fight inflammatory oxidants in your tissues. This is what it means when your cholesterol levels are too high – you have tissue inflammation you are not handling well. The way this all relates to heart disease is that when the inflammation is damaging your artery walls, cholesterol moves in to neutralize the damaging free radical and try to patch up the damaged artery wall. Your body does not work well if there are a lot of rips and tears in your artery walls. Cholesterol is a medicated band aid. The problem is that too many bandages will eventually block the artery up. Given a choice the body chooses this over leaking blood vessels, as they can kill you right away while blockages take a long time.
So, the real problem is inflammation caused by oxidizing free radicals. What does that mean on a practical level – reduce your exposure to free radicals. “What are free radicals” I hear you say? Well back in the 50″s and early 60’s we all knew the most common free radicals by a more common name – rancid oils. This understanding was “whitewashed” in the middle 60’s and 70’s by the powerful seed oil industry that developed in this country around then because it is seed oils that are the main source of rancid oils. We are talking corn oil, sunflower oil, soy oil, safflower oil, canola oil, and the like. These in their oil form were bad enough, but they became much more toxic when they were turned into shortening by creating trans oils with them. This “whitewashing” also took the form of demonizing the main competition to these oils – the tropical oils from coconut and palm. Lots of money changed hands paying for false studies and skewed statistics to make saturated fats look like bad guys when in fact they have been the main food calorie source for all humans throughout history. Seed oils are the real demons. Action fact: Don’t use seed oils!
Another serious know free radical is a chemical called xanthene oxidase. In fact it is the most common cause of damage to artery walls. What has been conveniently suppressed is where we encounter this nasty substance. Studies performed for the American Dairy Association back in the 60’s showed that massive amounts of this substance are formed when you homogenize milk. Natural, unpasteurized and unhomogenized milk is a very healthy food. But the stuff that is sold to you in every grocery store is not. Don’t use it. I know that is a hard recommendation to follow for many people, but do you know why? Casein, the main protein in milk, is a drug that stimulates the same receptors in the brain as heroin. Perhaps this helps explain why our country is addicted to milk products.
Another actionable fact: there is no danger for cholesterol levels under 240. Over 240 says you have serious tissue inflammation that needs to be addressed right away. In my opinion the use of anti-cholesterol drugs is bad medicine for those with cholesterol under 240 and simply misdirected for those over 240. It is like saying that we have won a war by stopping the supply of ambulances full of bandages to the troops. That is just plain dumb. Lets deal with the real problem…the war! Drugs may help prevent the buildup of cholesterol plaque while you are fighting the war, but it does so at the expense of leaving the body defenseless against the inflammation the cholesterol is being created to fight.
What other kinds of free radicals are there? The list is long and most of it is a byproduct of our modern life. Two especially bad ones are mercury from vaccines and fillings and aluminum from deodorants. Others include many plastics, chemicals, and ionizing radiation sources in our homes and work places that act to destroy our bodies. Many of these are hard to avoid, but we can start with the easy ones in our diet.
Oh, and by the way, eating cholesterol rich foods does not cause you to have high cholesterol. That was proved right here in Sacramento at the state fair many years ago with the largest study ever of cholesterol levels compared to cholesterol consumption. Over 17,000 blood tests were performed and compared to dietary cholesterol intake levels and no relationship was found.
There is much more on this subject, but the part that we can act on most right now has been mentioned above. If you have cholesterol levels above 240, then press your doctor to find out more about where the inflammation is and what can be done about it.