Do you have high cholesterol?

What interests your doctors the most is what cholesterol you have, right? High? So you have a problem and you will have clogged blood vessels and you will have a heart attack soon! Really?

What is happening around cholesterol is the blatant manipulation of people. First of all, it's not about cholesterol at all. These are lipoprotein particles. I have already mentioned them here, they are such a little trucks for the transport of fats and, for example, fat-soluble vitamins and also a building material called cholesterol. You know these particles as "good" HDL cholesterol and "bad" LDL cholesterol. Leaving aside HDL, it's clear that the more you have it the better. Surprisingly, there is no dispute about that.

To understand what LDL is, we need to look at it's CV. It is not born as LDL, but is formed as a particle of VLDL. The VLDL truck is created in the liver so that water-insoluble substances, especially fats, can be transported through the blood throughout the body. When they are formed, they contain the most fats and are therefore the largest, and because fats have a lower density than water (weight per volume), they also have the lowest density (VLDL = very low density lipoprotein). Notice that they have their packaging and an identification mark on it. In particular, VLDL has an apoB-100 label in contrast to similar but larger chylomicrons, which have an apoB-48 label or HDL with an apoA-1 label. There is always only one label of apoB-100. This is important, its damage causes considerable problems.

Little VLDL trucks gradually hand over their load to the cells and shrink. They contain less and less fat and the protein component remains the same, their density (again weight per volume, not viscosity) increases. From VLDL, we get through IDL to LDL (low density lipoprotein). It is captured by receptors in the liver for recycling, ie for refilling and dispatch.

So far no problem, it's well furnished.

I need to show you a few pictures from Dr. Nadir Ali's lecture on terrible cholesterol. Don't worry. Imagine a group of over a thousand children born in 1936, the so-called Lothian cohort. This group has been studied by researchers for a long time and many studies have been carried out. For example, they were divided into three groups according to blood cholesterol levels. Look what they came up with.

Surprisingly, we find that the group that should be in the best health (blue bars, least cholesterol) has the highest number of people with high blood pressure, 50 times more people with stroke, the most cardiovascular disease. But that is not all. People with the lowest cholesterol levels have poorer cognitive abilities, poor memory and also suffer from more infectious diseases. In addition, anti-cholesterol drugs make this worse. Houston, we have a problem! Something's not right here!

But some studies show that myocardial infarction is associated with high LDL levels, right? Well, in truth, LDL levels show very little correlation. Very low levels increase the risk of death from any cause, high levels slightly increase the risk of heart attack, but in seniors it reduces overall mortality. There are far better risk indicators, such as Lp(a) lipoprotein levels or the ratio of triglyceride levels to HDL, or the CAC calcium score, which monitors the actual condition of your coronary arteries and the risk of heart failure. Or the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 polyunsaturated phospholipids in cell membranes. An excess of omega-6 is really not good.

What if the problem is with the LDL measurement itself? What if we measure apples, pears, plums and cherries together. This could then mean that measuring LDL is completely useless. Studies show that the danger lies not in the LDL lipoprotein itself, but in its degradation.

We already know it's a fat truck. What if it can't unload his burden until it breaks itself or the label gets dirty, so they don't recognize him in the garage and let him wander here and there. What if it happens to a lot of trucks and they start to pile up on the road. They will wait for the tow truck and they will interfere. That's exactly what is happening. Once the metabolic syndrome occurs, fat burning is reduced and fat needs to be stored more. We have already shown that omega-6 linoleic acid is mainly to blame. Here they will have to drive our trucks here and there, and we know that this polyunsaturated fatty acid is very vulnerable. It turns out that blood glucose and even more fructose (sugars) stick to the LDL, the identification label is damaged and the LDL cannot return to the liver in the normal way via LDL receptors. The wandering disrupted LDL further oxidizes and is then removed by our immune system like any other alien invader. So if there is any bad LDL cholesterol, then it is only the one damaged by high blood sugar, by a metabolic syndrome. This is how Dr. Paul Mason lectures it, and he also makes detailed measurements of lipoprotein composition. This is the only way to distinguish harmless LDL lipoprotein from oxidized lipoprotein. See for yourself.

What does this mean? If you adjust your diet by reducing the amount of carbohydrates and raising the amount of cholesterol in your diet, you may experience a slight increase in LDL levels. However, this is not glycated oxidized dangerous LDL, which is formed at elevated glucose levels, during metabolic syndrome. So nothing that should interest you if you eliminate high blood sugar. In addition, higher LDL levels will increase your resistance to bacterial infections. LDL particles capture the chemical communication between bacteria, which then think they are alone and will not attack.

Your doctor will probably not examine the proportion of individual components of LDL, the total value of which means nothing at all and there is no point in measuring it at all, let alone administering any drugs based on this value. And he won't be interested in the metabolic syndrome either, until the values resemble diabetes.

And if you think that lowering your cholesterol in your diet will fix something, you're wrong. The body will make it itself. Cholesterol is extremely important and its deficiency leads to serious problems, you know.

The previous figure shows a complex enzymatic chain of reactions. Cholesterol-lowering drugs (statins) block production at the beginning of this production line (red arrow), at the end of which is cholesterol. It will therefore cause you to lack of all the products in this chain, such as coenzyme Q10, which is needed for muscle activity. Do you really want that?

There is another problem called phytosterols, plant cholesterols. Do you think it will be better to replace animal cholesterol with plant cholesterol? Error.

The main place where you find cholesterol in the body is the cell membrane and lipid rafts needed for transmission of nerve impulses. In order for a cell to hold a certain shape, the cell membrane contains cholesterol. For example, do you know the shape of red blood cells? They are flat disks, the thinnest in the middle. But they are elastic, they can pass even the thinnest capillaries. If you increase the proportion of plant cholesterol in the membrane, the blood cell will be too stiff and will not pass.

At normal animal cholesterol levels, plant cholesterols are discarded as waste. However, if you cause a shortage of animal cholesterols, for example by limiting their production with drugs and also restrict their intake in food, plant cholesterol will be incorporated into cell membranes. What will it cause? Problems with red blood cells, platelets and blood vessels. Another reason to avoid vegetable oils from seeds, because vegetable cholesterols are where vegetable fats are.

What does this mean? The problem is not the level of cholesterol in the blood, but the metabolic syndrome. This is due to the increased consumption of omega-6 polyunsaturated fats from vegetable oils in the absence of MCT oils in them, which first causes fluctuations and then a permanent increase in blood sugar levels. This is a major factor in the degradation of LDL lipoprotene (cholesterol) in the blood. It damages your blood vessels.

Rising butter consumption in Sweden correlates with a decrease in the incidence of heart disease, don't worry about butter!!

A low-cholesterol diet does not solve anything. On the contrary, it can cause insufficient levels of cholesterol in the blood, which is dangerous and is the cause of many problems and diseases and leads to premature death. You don't have to believe me, it's up to you. Try to find the information yourself. You can assess the state of your metabolism with this simple OGTT test. You have a tool in your hand to assess whether you are approaching illness or health, and I don't think that's a small point. You also have information on what to do for improvement, so why not use it.

Addition according to Dr. Paul Mason:

Estimated percentage of oxidized LDL particles according to the value of triglycerides, HDL and their ratio.