Cholesterol Levels, Have We Been Misinformed?
Anthony Colpo posted this article yesterday highlighting a recently published study (linked below) showing that cholesterol may actually be protective. I thought it was worth sharing. We have been bombarded with the message that high cholesterol is bad news for years. It’s everywhere. You can’t escape the message “Lower your cholesterol! Now!” But is it true? I don’t believe it any more.
New Study: Women With Higher Cholesterol Live Longer – Anthony Colpo
From the article:
Only one of the following statements is true. Can you guess which one?
a). Cholesterol clogs your arteries.
b). Cholesterol causes heart attacks.
c). Cholesterol will cause you to grow an extra head, have deformed kids, glow in the dark, then spontaneously combust at the age of 66.
d). Cholesterol is an essential substance without which we humans simply could not exist. It is a vital component of cells and used as a crucial substrate for cellular repair, has antioxidant properties, and may protect against infectious diseases. Your nervous system is especially dependent on cholesterol, which is found in high concentration in your brain and the myelin sheaths surrounding your nerves. Cholesterol has never, I repeat NEVER been clinically demonstrated to cause a single heart attack; the evidence linking cholesterol to heart disease was originally inspired by totally irrelevant rabbit studies conducted in Russia a century ago, and now rests entirely upon extremely spurious epidemiological associations. The main benefactors of the idiotic war on cholesterol are not members of the public wishing to avoid heart disease but those in the medical, diagnostic, and pharmaceutical industries. Oh, and let’s not forget the ‘non-profit’ (cough, cough) heart associations that thrive on this same paradigm (“Pssst, can I interest you in a cheap-as-chips Heart Check/Tick? Five grand and she’s yours, bro!”)
If you guessed d), go to the to top of the class. If you guessed a) or b), you are an unfortunate victim of the massive cholesterol brainwashing campaign that has been running strong for some 50 years now.
From Healthy Diets and Science which also reported on the study:
The study (ten years of duration) investigated if cholesterol levels are a risk factor for mortality in 52,087 individuals (24,235 men and 27,852 women) aged 20–74 years and free from known cardiovascular disease at the start of the study.The study found:(a) Compared with women whose cholesterol was under 5.0 mmol/l (193 mg/dl), those with a reading over 7.0 mmol/l (270 mg/dl) enjoyed a 28% reduction of death.(b) Compared with men whose cholesterol was under 5.0 mmol/l (193 mg/dl), those with a reading over 7.0 mmol/l (270 mg/dl) enjoyed a 11% reduction of death.(c) Compared with women whose cholesterol was under 5.0 mmol/l (193 mg/dl), those with a reading over 7.0 mmol/l (270 mg/dl) enjoyed a 26% reduction of cardiovascular diseases.(d) Compared with men whose cholesterol was under 5.0 mmol/l (193 mg/dl), those with a reading up to 5.9 mmol/l (228 mg/dl) enjoyed a 20% reduction of cardiovascular diseases.
From Chris Kresser yesterday on Facebook: “I’ve been reading the full-text. Amazing. Men & women with cholesterol <193 mg/dl had a HIGHER risk of death than those with cholesterol between 193 and 270, and even those above 270! The protective effect of cholesterol was most apparent in women: the higher their cholesterol went, the lower their risk of death.
When talking about cholesterol, I need to discuss LDL and particle size. I believe it’s important and I will try to pull a post together on the subject soon.
This is weirding me out. I can’t believe how much of a turnaround from what I thought the truth to be. Wow.
Very interesting. This reminded me of an article that I read in Dr. Gott’s column I think that said if you have a high level of HDL or good cholesterol then your overall cholesterol number is definitely going to be higher. I had never heard that before and it makes sense.