By: Ethan A. Huff
Source: NaturalNews.com
Including high-cholesterol foods as part of a healthy diet may not be the poor dietary choice we have all been told it is, suggests a new study published in the journal Nature Medicine. It turns out that Continue reading
By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com
A little over 100 years ago a German scientist wrote a letter to a company that made soap, and in so doing changed the way the world cooks its food. The soap company, Procter & Gamble, bought the Continue reading
By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com
Spending on cholesterol-lowering drugs like statins increased by $160 million in 2010, for a total spending of nearly $19 billion in the U.S., the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics reported in their Use of Medicines in the United Continue reading
By Andreas Moritz
To illustrate the development of heart disease from virtual non-existence to being the biggest killer disease, I have used statistical trends describing disease development in Germany – a typical, modern industrialized nation.
In the year 1800, meat consumption in Germany was about 13 kg (28 pounds) per person per year. One hundred years later, meat consumption was nearly three times as high, at 38 kg per person per year. By 1979, it had reached 94.2 kg, which is an increase of 725 percent in less than 180 years. These figures do not include fats. During the period of 1946-1978, meat consumption in Germany increased by 90% and heart attacks rose by 20 times. During the same period, fat consumption remained the same, whereas consumption of cereals and potatoes, which are major suppliers of vegetable protein, decreased by 45%. Therefore, fats and carbohydrates, as well as vegetable proteins, cannot be considered to be causes of coronary heart disease. This leaves meat as the main factor responsible for the dramatic upsurge of this degenerative blood vessel disease.
In consideration of the fact that at least 50 percent of the German population is overweight and most overweight people eat much more meat than those with normal weight do, meat consumption among the overweight must have at least quadrupled in the 33 years after World War II. Being overweight is considered to be a major risk for high blood pressure and heart disease.
According to statistics published by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1978, the yearly increases of heart attacks in Western European countries were accompanied by a continuous yearly increase in meat consumption by as much as 4 kg per person. This practically means that eating habits after World War II have shifted from a healthy mixed diet to one excessive in animal protein, but poor in carbohydrates such as fruits, vegetables and grains. According to the WHO, fat consumption remained virtually unchanged. Heart attacks and atherosclerosis began to increase dramatically in Germany and in Western industrialized nations soon after the war; today they cause over 50 percent of all deaths.
Although fat consumption among vegetarians is not less than among meat eaters, the vegetarians have the lowest death rates from heart disease.The Journal of the American Medical Association reported that a vegetarian diet could prevent 97% of all coronary occlusions. The incredibly popular high protein, low carbohydrate Atkins Diet and South Beach Diet have the unfortunate side effect of starving a person by clogging up his capillary and artery walls with excessive proteins, and by greatly limiting his fuel intake (carbohydrates). This can certainly make a person lose weight, but not without also damaging his kidneys, liver, and heart. Both the late Dr. Atkins, a heart disease and obesity victim, and former U.S. President Bill Clinton, a keen follower of the South Beach Diet and recipient of a quadruple bypass, suffered the consequences of the high protein diet. Millions of Americans are following in their footsteps.
The reason for the virtual absence of coronary heart disease among vegetarians is their low intake or complete absence of animal protein. Fat consumption is, therefore, only an accomplice of the disease, but not its cause. The constantly recycled mass hysteria that believes fat, which is generally associated with cholesterol, to be the main dietary culprit of heart disease, is completely unfounded, outdated, and has no scientific basis.
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This is an excerpt from my book HEART DISEASE NO MORE!
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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyper link back to the web page
By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com
Statins, drugs that lower your cholesterol levels, are one of the most widely prescribed drugs in the world.
In the US, a staggering one in four over the age of 45 is now taking this unnecessary drug!
Statins act by blocking a crucial enzyme in your liver responsible for making cholesterol.
But that’s not all this enzyme is responsible for.
This enzyme also makes CoQ10, which is essential for mitochondrial health.
Perhaps it’s not so surprising then that many potentially dangerous side effects go hand-in-hand with statin drug use.
To date, there are no less than 900 studies proving their adverse effects, which run the gamut from muscle problems to diabetes, to birth defects and increased cancer risk.
One recent study sought to determine whether the use of statin drugs was associated with prostate cancer risk.
The researchers looked at close to 400 prostate cancer patients who had a first-time diagnosis during the period between 2005 and 2008.
They found that use of any statin drug, in any amount, was associated with a significantly increased risk for prostate cancer.
In addition, there was an increasing risk that came along with an increasing cumulative dose.
According to the study:
“The results of this case-control study suggest that statins may increase the risk of prostate cancer.”
While the evidence still appears a bit all over the map, with study results ranging from increased cancer risk to reduced risk, to no noticeable risk at all, what IS clear is that conventional medicine still does not understand the full ramifications of artificially lowering your cholesterol levels, and they simply don’t know whether or not the use of these drugs may be adding fuel to an already out of control cancer epidemic.
In short, with well over 30 million Americans now taking statin drugs, we’re witnessing a massive ongoing ‘live’ experiment.
Over 10 years ago, research indicated that besides lowering cholesterol, statins could also promote the growth of new blood vessels. And, although this effect may help to prevent heart attacks and other forms of heart disease, it may also promote cancer as well by increasing the growth of blood vessels in cancerous tumors. Meanwhile, other studies have indicated the complete opposite; that statins can inhibit angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels), so again, it’s virtually impossible to say that statin safety and effectiveness is based on hard science…
But the statin-cancer connection actually goes much farther back than that. A review published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1996 stated:
“All members of the two most popular classes of lipid-lowering drugs (the fibrates and the statins) cause cancer in rodents, in some cases at levels of animal exposure close to those prescribed to humans. …
Longer-term clinical trials and careful postmarketing surveillance during the next several decades are needed to determine whether cholesterol-lowering drugs cause cancer in humans.
In the meantime, the results of experiments in animals and humans suggest that lipid-lowering drug treatment, especially with the fibrates and statins, should be avoided except in patients at high short-term risk of coronary heart disease.”
Needless to say, such warnings were completely ignored. Instead, public health officials have gone the opposite way, happily following the trail littered with the most cash.
Over the past decade, cholesterol guidelines have been altered to create ever more ‘patients’ to be treated with cholesterol-lowering drugs. In 2004, the U.S. government’s National Cholesterol Education Program panel advised those at risk for heart disease to attempt to reduce their LDL (bad) cholesterol to extremely low levels, and it’s been a health disaster ever since.
Before 2004, a 130-milligram LDL cholesterol level was considered healthy. The updated guidelines, however, recommended levels of less than 100, or even less than 70 for patients at very high risk. These updated guidelines instantly increased the market for cholesterol-lowering drugs. The marked has further increased with the call to begin screening children prior to puberty, and prescribing statins to kids as young as eight.
Not surprisingly, eight of the nine doctors on the approval panel for these absurdly low guidelines had financial ties to the companies making these cholesterol-lowering drugs.
Back in 2008, troubling study findings were released showing a dramatically increased risk of cancer related deaths in those taking Inegy (also sold under the trade name Vytorin). The drug combines the widely-used statin drug simvastatin with another medication called ezetimibe, which blocks the absorption of cholesterol in your gut. The study also found no benefit whatsoever from the drug.
This despite the fact that it reduced LDL cholesterol levels by a respectable 61 percent, which “should have” had an effect on cardiovascular events, based on the prevailing hypothesis that high LDL equates to high risk of heart disease. So, in a nutshell, the drug had no beneficial impact on the primary outcome (meaning it did not reduce major cardiovascular adverse events), while more people developed cancer on the treatment (105 versus 70 patients taking a placebo), and more cancer related deaths (39 cancer deaths versus 23 in the control group).
A couple of months after the results were revealed, a panel assembled by the American Academy of Cardiology declared that:
“… the aggressively marketed drug combination should be used only as a last resort. There is currently no evidence that ezetimibe, which reduces levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, improves clinical outcomes such as myocardial infarction or death.”
In December 2009, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the completion of their review of the disturbing SEAS trial (above), as well as interim data from two other large-scale ongoing cardiovascular trials using Vytorin: the SHARP and IMPROVE-IT trials. (The SHARP trial was concluded in 2010, while the IMPROVE-IT trial is expected to be completed in 2012.)
Their conclusion?
“FDA believes it is unlikely that Vytorin or Zetia increase the risk of cancer or cancer-related death.”
I don’t know how much faith you have in the FDA’s beliefs, but mine is on pretty shaky ground… The FDA goes on to list a number of factors that were weighed to reach the conclusion that they believe cancer is unrelated to the drugs. You can review them for yourself here, and see if you would concur with their assessment.
Ironically, while reducing your risk of cardiovascular events and heart disease is the primary motivation for prescribing statins, these drugs can actually increase your risk of heart disease because they deplete your body of Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), which can lead to heart failure. Statins have also been linked to:
As mentioned in the beginning, statin drugs also block the production of Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), and that in and of itself poses a very serious health risk. As your body gets more and more depleted of CoQ10, you may suffer from fatigue, muscle weakness and soreness, and eventually heart failure. Coenzyme Q10 plays a vital role in the process of neutralizing free radicals and the optimal production of cellular energy.
Unfortunately, the majority of people who take statins are unaware of their need for CoQ10, and physicians rarely advise their patients to take this supplement along with their statin—at least in the United States. It’s also important to supplement right from the start, to ward off irreversible mitochondrial damage.
Make no mistake about it, if you’re on a statin drug, you simply must take a CoQ10 supplement. If you’re over the age of 40, I strongly recommend using the reduced version, called ubiquinol. Ubiquinol is a far more effective form—I personally take it every day as it has far-ranging health benefits. There’s evidence that CoQ10/ubiquinol is beneficial for Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and even cancer, as well as staving off premature aging in general by preventing telomere shortening, which can slow or potentially even reverse the aging process.
Unlike prescription drugs that kill over 125,000 people every year in the U.S. alone, there are no reported side effects of CoQ10 supplementation and no one has ever died from taking it.
While statins drugs are very effective for lowering so-called “bad” cholesterol, the low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, it’s important to realize that there are different sizes of LDL cholesterol particles, and it’s the LDL particle size that is relevant, as small particles get stuck easily and causes more inflammation. Unfortunately, most people don’t hear about that part, and very rarely, if ever, get it tested.
Naturally, the drug companies really don’t want you to know about this, because statins do not modulate the size of the particles.
The only way to make sure your LDL particles are large enough to not get stuck and cause inflammation and damage is through your diet. In fact, modulating LDL particle size is one of the things that insulin does. If you eat properly and maintain normal insulin levels, then everything works as it should—the LDL particles are large and buoyant; they don’t get stuck, and don’t cause inflammation.
So rather than worry about your cholesterol numbers, you really want to work on reducing inflammation, which can be caused by numerous things, including:
When you get to the bottom of it, the real “villain” of heart disease is typically an unhealthy lifestyle, characterized by a heavy reliance on sugars and grains, processed, highly cooked foods, and insufficient amounts of exercise – not “high cholesterol” per se.
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By Andreas Moritz
Cholesterol is an essential building block of every cell in the body, required for all metabolic processes. It is particularly important in the production of nerve tissue, bile and certain hormones. On average, our body produces about half of a gram to one gram of cholesterol per day, depending on how much of it the body needs at the time. By and large, our body is able to produce 400 times more cholesterol per day than what we would obtain from eating 3,5 ounces (100 grams) of butter. The main cholesterol producers are the liver and the small intestine, in that order. Normally, they are able to release cholesterol directly into the blood stream, where it is instantly tied to blood proteins. These proteins, which are called lipoproteins, are in charge of transporting the cholesterol to its numerous destinations. There are three main types of lipoproteins in charge of transporting cholesterol: Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL), Very Low Density Lipoprotein (VLDL), and High Density Lipoprotein (HDL).
In comparison to HDL, which has been privileged with the name ‘good’ cholesterol, LDL and VLDL are relatively large cholesterol molecules; in fact, they are the richest in cholesterol. There is good reason for their large size. Unlike their smaller cousin, which easily passes through blood vessel walls, the LDL and VLDL versions of cholesterol are meant to take a different pathway; they leave the blood stream in the liver.
The blood vessels supplying the liver have a very different structure from the ones supplying other parts of the body. They are known as sinusoids. Their unique, grid-like structure permits the liver cells to receive the entire blood content, including the large cholesterol molecules. The liver cells rebuild the cholesterol and excrete it along with bile into the intestines. Once the cholesterol enters the intestines, it combines with fats, is absorbed by the lymph and enters the blood, in that order. Gallstones in the bile ducts of the liver inhibit the bile flow and partially, or even fully, block the cholesterol’s escape route. Due to back-up pressure on the liver cells, bile production drops. Typically, a healthy liver produces over a quart of bile per day. When the major bile ducts are blocked, barely a cup of bile, or even less, will find its way to the intestines. This prevents much of the VLDL and LDL cholesterol from being excreted with the bile.
Gallstones in the liver bile ducts distort the structural framework of the liver lobules, which damages and congests the sinusoids. Deposits of excessive protein also close the grid holes of these blood vessels (see the discussion of this subject in the previous section). Whereas the ‘good’ cholesterol HDL has small enough molecules to leave the bloodstream through ordinary capillaries, the larger LDL and VLDL molecules are more or less trapped in the blood. The result is that LDL and VLDL concentrations begin to rise in the blood to levels that seem potentially harmful to the body. Yet even this scenario is merely part of the body’s survival attempts. It needs the extra cholesterol to patch up the increasing number of cracks and wounds that are formed as a result of the accumulation of excessive protein in the blood vessel walls. Eventually, though, the life-saving cholesterol begins to occlude the blood vessels and cut off the oxygen supply to the heart.
In addition to this complication, reduced bile flow impairs the digestion of food, particularly fats. Therefore, there is not enough cholesterol made available to the cells of the body and their basic metabolic processes. Since the liver cells no longer receive sufficient amounts of LDL and VLDL molecules, they (the liver cells) assume that the blood is deficient in these types of cholesterol. This stimulates the liver cells to increase the production of cholesterol, further raising the levels of LDL and VLDL cholesterol in the blood.
The ‘bad’ cholesterol is trapped in the circulatory system because its escape routes, the bile ducts and the liver sinusoids, are blocked or damaged. The capillary network and arteries attach as much of the ‘bad’ cholesterol to their walls as they possibly can. Consequently, the arteries become rigid and hard.
Coronary heart disease, regardless of whether it is caused by smoking, drinking excessive amounts of alcohol, overeating protein foods, stress, or any other factor, usually does not occur unless gallstones have impacted the bile ducts of the liver. Removing gallstones from the liver and gallbladder can not only prevent a heart attack or stroke, but also reverse coronary heart disease and heart muscle damage. The body’s response to stressful situations becomes less damaging, and cholesterol levels begin to normalize as the distorted and damaged liver lobules are regenerated. Cholesterol-lowering drugs don’t do that. They artificially reduce blood cholesterol, which coerces the liver to produce even more cholesterol. But when extra cholesterol is passed into the bile ducts, it remains in its crystalline state (versus soluble state) and, thereby, turns into gallstones. People who regularly use cholesterol-lowering drugs usually develop an excessively large number of gallstones. This sets them up for major side effects, including cancer and heart disease.
Cholesterol is essential for normal functioning of the immune system, particularly for the body’s response to the millions of cancer cells that every person makes in his body each day. For all the health problems associated with cholesterol, this important substance is not something we should try to eliminate from our bodies. Cholesterol does far more good than harm. The harm is generally symptomatic of other problems. I wish to emphasize, once again, that ‘bad’ cholesterol only attaches itself to the walls of arteries to avert immediate heart trouble, not to create it. This is confirmed by the fact that cholesterol never attaches itself to the walls of veins. When a doctor tests your cholesterol levels, he takes the blood sample from a vein, not from an artery. Although blood flow is much slower in veins than in arteries, cholesterol should obstruct veins much more readily than arteries, but it never does. There simply is no need for that. Why? Because there are no abrasions and tears in the lining of the vein that require patching up. Cholesterol only affixes itself to arteries in order to coat and cover up the abrasions and protect the underlying tissue like a waterproof bandage. Veins do not absorb proteins in their basements membranes like capillaries and arteries do and, therefore, are not prone to this type of injury.
‘Bad’ cholesterol saves lives; it does not take lives. LDL allows the blood to flow through injured blood vessels without causing a life-endangering situation. The theory of high LDL being a principal cause of coronary heart disease is not only unproved and unscientific. It has misled the population to believe that cholesterol is an enemy that has to be fought and destroyed at all costs. Human studies have not shown a cause-and-effect relationship between cholesterol and heart disease. The hundreds of studies so far conducted on such a relationship have only shown that there is a statistical correlation between the two. And there should be, because if there were no ‘bad’ cholesterol molecules attaching themselves to injured arteries we would have millions of more deaths from heart attack than we already have. On the other hand, dozens of conclusive studies have shown that risk of heart disease increases significantly in people whose HDL levels decrease. Elevated LDL cholesterol is not a cause of heart disease; rather, it is a consequence of an unbalanced liver and congested, dehydrated circulatory system.
If your doctor has told you that lowering your cholesterol with medical drugs protects you against heart attacks, you have been grossly misled. The #1 prescribed cholesterol-lowering medicine is Lipitor. I suggest that you read the following warning statement, issued on the official Lipitor web site:
“LIPITORï (atorvastatin calcium) tablets is a prescription drug used with diet to lower cholesterol. LIPITOR is not for everyone, including those with liver disease or possible liver problems, and women who are nursing, pregnant, or may become pregnant. LIPITOR has not been shown to prevent heart disease or heart attacks.
“If you take LIPITOR, tell your doctor about any unusual muscle pain or weakness. This could be a sign of serious side effects. It is important to tell your doctor about any medications you are currently taking to avoid possible serious drug interactions…”
My question is, “Why risk a person’s health or life by giving him/her a drug that has no effect, whatsoever, in preventing the problem for which it is being prescribed?” The reason why the lowering of cholesterol levels cannot prevent heart disease is because cholesterol does not cause heart disease.
The most important issue is how efficiently a person’s body uses cholesterol and other fats. The body’s ability to digest, process and utilize these fats depends on how clear and unobstructed the bile ducts of the liver are. When bile flow is unrestricted and balanced, both the LDL and HDL levels are balanced as well. Therefore, keeping the bile ducts open is the best prevention of coronary heart disease.
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This is an excerpt from my book THE AMAZING LIVER AND GALLBLADDER FLUSH
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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyper link back to the web page
By: Elizabeth Walling
Source: NaturalNews.com
If the diagnosis of high cholesterol sounds like a death sentence to your ears, you may be the victim of cholesterol propaganda. It’s not uncommon to believe that lower is better when it comes to cholesterol, but new research shows otherwise. In fact, a recent study in Norway says women with high cholesterol live longer and suffer from fewer heart attacks and strokes than those with lower cholesterol.
Can High Cholesterol Save Your Life? Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology looked at 52,087 individuals between the ages of 20 and 74. After adjusting for factors like age, smoking and blood pressure, researchers found women with high cholesterol (more than 270 mg/dl) had a 28 percent lower mortality risk than women with low cholesterol (under 193 mg/dl). Risk for heart disease, cardiac arrest and stroke also declined as cholesterol levels rose.
The researchers involved in the study admit this contradicts commonly accepted beliefs about cholesterol. They say current guideline information is misleading because the role of cholesterol in heart disease is overestimated.
These results fly in the face of what most of us have been told about cholesterol. Our misconceptions about cholesterol may in fact be endangering countless lives. For instance, millions of people are prescribed statin drugs to lower their cholesterol levels, believing that this will save their lives. Not only do statin drugs come with a plethora of dangerous side effects, but now the very premise of their existence is also brought into question.
Our focus on lowering cholesterol to prevent heart disease and mortality is misplaced. It also fails to serve in the best interest of our health and wellness. In fact, the dogmatic belief that cholesterol must be lowered appears to best serve pharmaceutical companies, which profit from cholesterol-lowering drugs.
Better results will be achieved when we develop a more well-rounded focus on other risks for heart disease, which include stress, toxins, a sedentary lifestyle and a poor diet. As an added bonus, these factors aren’t treated with dangerous pharmaceutical drugs, but with simple, healthful lifestyle changes.
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Reducing high cholesterol levels without using statins
Hi, this is a very good question from Margarita, how can you reduce high levels of cholesterol without statins?
Now statins are cholesterol lowering drugs that are used by the medical system and the medical industry to combat and lower cholesterol levels because they believe or they tell us that high cholesterol is dangerous for our heart… something that by the way has never ever been proven.
They have been able to show that people who suffer from heart disease can have high cholesterol but this is a correlation, not a cause-effect relationship. In fact when you look at popular websites of drug makers like Lipitor, the Lipitor website, you will find that there is a statement that taking those drug does not diminish your risk of heart attack or heart disease, so it does not really show there is not a single scientific study that shows that by taking these medications your risk of heart disease goes down. In fact fifty percent or more people who suffer heart attack… they have no cholesterol in their blood vessels whatsoever.
The other thing is that cholesterol has been vilified for a long time particularly given a bad name LDL liquid LDL cholesterol which is named a bad cholesterol but, there is no bad cholesterol in the body. There are different kinds of cholesterol, depends on whether cholesterol is moving… fats are moved by particular proteins through the liver and fat is moving out of the liver by another set of particular proteins and depending on the proteins, that will determine whether we call it LDL or VLDL which is very low density liver protein or HDL which is suppose to be a good cholesterol.
In reality all of these cholesterols are essential for the body they all serve a particular purpose for example if you cut yourself in the finger or have another wound somewhere else or there is a wound in the blood vessel which can cause bleeding then one the first hormones that go there is cholesterol. Cholesterol is a hormone, it is a stress hormone as well, so it goes up when you are stressed or if exert your brain and nervous system you are producing extra cholesterol in order to combat that particular threat because when you are under threat, you cause potential damage to blood vessels and to brain cells, you are using up a lot of more cholesterol, so the body has to make more cholesterol.
The other thing is that the most of the body, most of the cells in the body are composed of cholesterol. All hormones are made of cholesterol, so it is not something that we should vilify and put a bad label on it. We need that. If cholesterol is accumulating in the blood vessels and they are creating an obstruction, then that is not done because the body is trying to harm itself or create an obstruction and the blood is not flowing properly through these blood vessels, but the body is doing that to prevent heart attacks.
The reason why that happens is that once again, cholesterol is a stress hormone, it goes to every wound, to any lesion, any part that is damaged or inflamed, so if there is an inflammation of the blood vessel, for example by eating sugar, and sugar increases the uric acid content in the blood and once the uric acid starts attacking the blood vessels then the blood vessels can get inflamed and the same thing happens when you eat these animal proteins, these animal proteins end up getting built into what is know as the basal membranes of the blood vessel wall then that creates an inflammatory response in that blood vessel and eventually it can cause bleeding, and when blood clots are formed because of blood escaping from these blood vessels, then the blood clots could enter the heart and cause a heart attack. To prevent the heart attack the body will have to patch up these wounds and the best patching material is cholesterol, and it is the first aid bandage.
It bandages, it will prevent these blood clots from escaping causing heart attacks or strokes. So cholesterol is a friend, it is not our enemy. And when the cholesterol… obviously, it is very soft… and so these soft patches they could easily break free, so the body needs to solidify them and integrate calcium, inorganic calcium, in that cholesterol material to make it really hard and crusty. In fact ninety percent of these collusions, consist of calcium and not cholesterol. Cholesterol is only a small part of it, maybe five, seven, eight percent of it so, it is not the enemy that we are making it out to be.
And that is why using statins to reduce cholesterol levels, in my opinion, and there are many, many studies to show that it is outright dangerous. It can cause liver damage and now it is shown to actually cause heart disease, something that the statin was supposed to prevent. It can also cause brain damage and obviously cause stones in the bile ducts of the liver by basically preventing the liver from making extra cholesterol that hinders the liver to produced bile to digest your food properly, and then a lot of undigested food will decompose, the bacteria produce toxins, those toxins go back into the blood stream, into the liver, and producing more stones, and then a vicious cycle is being created. It is very, very difficult to escape from it, that is why Statins have such a horrendous number of side effects including liver damage and muscle damage that eventually the whole body can develop many illnesses and diseases for which then new drugs are prescribed that try to suppress those symptoms as well. Whenever you try to subdue a symptom like high cholesterol then you are getting in to trouble.
The other things about cholesterol, there is a lot of misinformation about what is normal levels of cholesterol and what is abnormal, and there are studies that are… very, very elaborate studies… that confirm that the older you grow, the higher the cholesterol actually needs to be. So a person who is aged sixty should have a cholesterol 260 or little more than that, whereas nowadays, they are immediately telling a person of age sixty if he has cholesterol 260 or a little more he should definitely take statins and they are actually telling people now that 200 is too much at age forty which is ridiculous, their cholesterol does not do any harm, it just not a vicious thing that somehow causes damage to the body, it is part of the protective mechanism and should never be brought down artificially. There are natural ways to make the need for increased cholesterol less and that is changing the diet, exercising, sun exposure which has been shown to generate vitamin D and once the body has normal vitamin D levels, cholesterol levels automatically drop. So it is something to consider. Regular sun exposure without sunscreen of course otherwise this benefit does not occur.
The other thing to consider with regard to cholesterol is eating foods that are low in animal proteins and there should be no processed fats which always create damage to blood vessel walls and cause a need for more cholesterol to patch up these inflammation centers or spots in the blood vessels. So it’s very, very important to consider a diet that is vegetarian. There is a lot of talk now about people like Bill Clinton, former President of the United States being on a vegan diet because his blood vessels were continuously getting damaged and he is doing much better now and so many other people have recognized that eating vegan, vegetarian diet, will benefit them to the point that heart disease and blood vessels actually become reversed completely by following such a diet.
So I wholeheartedly recommend making those changes, cleaning out the liver, getting out in the sun, drinking enough water, keep the blood thin because of that and staying away from any of these harmful drugs which cause a person to enter a vicious cycle from which it is very, very difficult to escape and to recover.
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You may share or republish this article provided you clearly mention the name of Andreas Moritz and paste a hyper link back to the web page
By Andreas Moritz
Cholesterol is an essential building block of every cell in the body, required for all metabolic processes. It is particularly important in the production of nerve tissue, bile and certain hormones. On average, our body produces about half of a gram to one gram of cholesterol per day, depending on how much of it the body needs at the time. By and large, our body is able to produce 400 times more cholesterol per day than what we would obtain from eating 3.5 ounces (100 grams) of butter. The main cholesterol producers are the liver and the small intestine, in that order. Normally, they are able to release cholesterol directly into the blood stream, where it is instantly tied to blood proteins. These proteins, which are called lipoproteins, are in charge of transporting the cholesterol to its numerous destinations. There are three main types of lipoproteins in charge of transporting cholesterol: Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL), Very Low Density Lipoprotein (VLDL), and High Density Lipoprotein (HDL).
In comparison to HDL, which has been privileged with the name ‘good’ cholesterol, LDL and VLDL are relatively large cholesterol molecules; in fact, they are the richest in cholesterol. There is good reason for their large size. Unlike their smaller cousin, which easily passes through blood vessel walls, the LDL and VLDL versions of cholesterol are meant to take a different pathway; they leave the blood stream in the liver.
The blood vessels supplying the liver have a very different structure from the ones supplying other parts of the body. They are known as sinusoids. Their unique, grid-like structure permits the liver cells to receive the entire blood content, including the large cholesterol molecules. The liver cells rebuild the cholesterol and excrete it along with bile into the intestines. Once the cholesterol enters the intestines, it combines with fats, is absorbed by the lymph and enters the blood, in that order. Gallstones in the bile ducts of the liver inhibit the bile flow and partially, or even fully, block the cholesterol’s escape route. Due to back-up pressure on the liver cells, bile production drops. Typically, a healthy liver produces over a quart of bile per day. When the major bile ducts are blocked, barely a cup of bile, or even less, will find its way to the intestines. This prevents much of the VLDL and LDL cholesterol from being excreted with the bile.
Gallstones in the liver bile ducts distort the structural framework of the liver lobules, which damages and congests the sinusoids. Deposits of excessive protein also close the grid holes of these blood vessels (see the discussion of this subject in the section on Coronary Heart Disease). Whereas the ‘good’ cholesterol, HDL, has small enough molecules to leave the bloodstream through ordinary capillaries, the larger LDL and VLDL molecules are more or less trapped in the blood. The result is that LDL and VLDL concentrations begin to rise in the blood to levels that seem potentially harmful to the body. Yet even this scenario is merely part of the body’s survival attempts. It needs the extra cholesterol to patch up the increasing number of cracks and wounds that are formed as a result of the accumulation of excessive protein in the blood vessel walls. Eventually, though, the life-saving cholesterol begins to occlude the blood vessels and cut off the oxygen supply to the heart.
In addition to this complication, reduced bile flow impairs the digestion of food, particularly fats. Therefore, there is not enough cholesterol made available to the cells of the body and their basic metabolic processes. Since the liver cells no longer receive sufficient amounts of LDL and VLDL molecules, they (the liver cells) assume that the blood is deficient in these types of cholesterol. This stimulates the liver cells to increase the production of cholesterol, further raising the levels of LDL and VLDL cholesterol in the blood.
The ‘bad’ cholesterol is trapped in the circulatory system because its escape routes, the bile ducts and the liver sinusoids, are blocked or damaged. The capillary network and arteries attach as much of the ‘bad’ cholesterol to their walls as they possibly can. Consequently, the arteries become rigid and hard.
Coronary heart disease, regardless of whether it is caused by smoking, drinking excessive amounts of alcohol, overeating protein foods, stress, or any other factor, usually does not occur unless gallstones have impacted the bile ducts of the liver. Removing gallstones from the liver and gallbladder can not only prevent a heart attack or stroke, but also reverse coronary heart disease and heart muscle damage. The body’s response to stressful situations becomes less damaging, and cholesterol levels begin to normalize as the distorted and damaged liver lobules are regenerated. Cholesterol-lowering drugs don’t do that. They artificially reduce blood cholesterol, which coerces the liver to produce even more cholesterol. But when extra cholesterol is passed into the bile ducts, it remains in its crystalline state (versus soluble state) and, in so doing, turns into gallstones. People who regularly use cholesterol-lowering drugs usually develop an excessively large number of gallstones. This sets them up for major side effects, including cancer and heart disease.
Cholesterol is essential for normal functioning of the immune system, particularly for the body’s response to the millions of cancer cells that every person makes in his body each day. For all the health problems associated with cholesterol, this important substance is not something we should try to eliminate from our bodies. Cholesterol does far more good than harm. The harm is generally symptomatic of other problems. I wish to emphasize, once again, that ‘bad’ cholesterol only attaches itself to the walls of arteries to avert immediate heart trouble, not to create it.
This is confirmed by the fact that cholesterol never attaches itself to the walls of veins. When a doctor tests your cholesterol levels, he takes the blood sample from a vein, not from an artery. Although blood flow is much slower in veins than in arteries, cholesterol should obstruct veins much more readily than arteries, but it never does. There simply is no need for that. Why? Because there are no abrasions and tears in the lining of the vein that require patching up. Cholesterol only affixes itself to arteries in order to coat and cover up the abrasions and protect the underlying tissue like a waterproof bandage. Veins do not absorb proteins in their basement membranes like capillaries and arteries do and, therefore, are not prone to this type of injury.
‘Bad‘ cholesterol saves lives; it does not take lives. LDL allows the blood to flow through injured blood vessels without causing a life-endangering situation. The theory of high LDL being a principal cause of coronary heart disease is not only unproved and unscientific. It has also misled the population to believe that cholesterol is an enemy that has to be fought and destroyed at all costs. Human studies have not shown a cause-and-effect relationship between cholesterol and heart disease. The hundreds of studies so far conducted on such a relationship have only shown that there is a statistical correlation between the two. And there should be, because if there were no ‘bad’ cholesterol molecules attaching themselves to injured arteries, then we would have millions of more deaths from heart attack than we already have. On the other hand, dozens of conclusive studies have shown that risk of heart disease increases significantly in people whose HDL levels decrease. Elevated LDL cholesterol is not a cause of heart disease; rather, it is a consequence of an unbalanced liver and congested, dehydrated circulatory system.
If your doctor has told you that lowering your cholesterol with medical drugs protects you against heart attacks, you have been grossly misled. The #1 prescribed cholesterol-lowering medicine is Lipitor. I suggest that you read the following warning statement, issued on the official Lipitor website:
“LIPITOR (atorvastatin calcium) tablets is a prescription drug used with diet to lower cholesterol. LIPITOR is not for everyone, including those with liver disease or possible liver problems, and women who are nursing, pregnant, or may become pregnant. LIPITOR has not been shown to prevent heart disease or heart attacks.
“If you take LIPITOR, tell your doctor about any unusual muscle pain or weakness. This could be a sign of serious side effects. It is important to tell your doctor about any medications you are currently taking to avoid possible serious drug interactions.”
My question is, “Why risk a person’s health or life by giving him/her a drug that has no effect, whatsoever, in preventing the problem for which it is being prescribed?” The reason why the lowering of cholesterol levels cannot prevent heart disease is because cholesterol does not cause heart disease.
The most important issue is how efficiently a person’s body uses cholesterol and other fats. The body’s ability to digest, process and utilize these fats depends on how clear and unobstructed the bile ducts of the liver are. When bile flow is unrestricted and balanced, both the LDL and HDL levels are balanced as well. Therefore, keeping the bile ducts open is the best prevention of coronary heart disease.
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