Re: Opposite view from a vegetarian researcher at Stanford.

Most everyone is concerned about high cholesterol, but only because this is what they have been told to believe by the establishment and the resultant sale and profits of statin drugs.

Here are the facts about cholesterol!

1 Cholesterol is not a deadly poison, but a substance vital to the cells of all mammals. There are no such things as good or bad cholesterol, but mental stress, physical activity and change of body weight may influence the level of blood cholesterol. A high cholesterol is not dangerous by itself, but may reflect an unhealthy condition, or it may be totally innocent.

2 A high blood cholesterol is said to promote atherosclerosis and thus also coronary heart disease. But many studies have shown that people whose blood cholesterol is low become just as atherosclerotic as people whose cholesterol is high.

3 Your body produces three to four times more cholesterol than you eat. The production of cholesterol increases when you eat little cholesterol and decreases when you eat much. This explains why the ”prudent” diet cannot lower cholesterol more than on average a few per cent.

4 There is no evidence that too much animal fat and cholesterol in the diet promotes atherosclerosis or heart attacks. For instance, more than twenty studies have shown that people who have had a heart attack haven't eaten more fat of any kind than other people, and degree of atherosclerosis at autopsy is unrelated with the diet.

5 The only effective way to lower cholesterol is with drugs, but neither heart mortality or total mortality have been improved with drugs the effect of which is cholesterol-lowering only. On the contrary, these drugs are dangerous to your health and may shorten your life.

6 The modern cholesterol-lowering drugs, the statins, do prevent cardiovascular disease, but this is due to other mechanisms than cholesterol-lowering. Unfortunately, they also stimulate cancer in rodents, disturb the functions of the muscles, the heart and the brain and pregnant women taking statins may give birth to children with malformations more severe than those seen after thalidomide.

7 Many of these facts have been presented in scientific journals and books for decades but are rarely told to the public by the proponents of the diet-heart idea.

8 The reason why laymen, doctors and most scientists have been misled is because opposing and disagreeing results are systematically ignored or misquoted in the scientific press.

9 The Benefits Of High Cholesterol

By Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD
http://www.ravnskov.nu/uffe.htm

http://www.ravnskov.nu/cholesterol.htm


The most accurate marker for heart-disease is C-reactive protein (CRP). CRP measures inflammation in your body, which is the real cause of heart disease.

Inflammation comes from stress or damage to your blood vessels when they don’t get the nutrients they need. They can get cracked and weak, and the body responds by sending plaque to repair the damage. Continuous lack of nutrients can cause this plaque to build up – leading to heart attack or stroke. (Linus Pauling among others.)
One of the best ways to lower CRP is to exercise. Studies clearly show that people who went from couch slouching to exercising lowered their CRP as much as 30%...............
# Church T, Barlow CE, Earnest CP, et.al. Association between cardiorespiratory fitness and C-reactive protein in men. Arteriosclerosis and Thrombosis: Journal of Vascular Biology, 2002 Nov 1;22(11):1869-1879.

Also, Omega oils found in cold-water fish and flax seed oil help lower c reactive protein and quench the fires of inflammation.

Chrisb1. Tweet