High Cholesterol Causes Heart Disease? : Part 4

A colleague of mine asked me "What do you always eat for breakfast?". When I told him I consume high fat foods for breakfast, he look surprised. He couldn't understand why eating high fat diet could enable a person to stay lean and not being fat. But folks, I'm talking about good quality fats here. For instance, an avocado  could consists of 30-40g of good quality fat. An organic raw free range egg easily has 5g of fat as well, and partially saturated fat. Organic coconut oil has 14g of saturated fat per serving (one tablespoon). The idea is to avoid trans fat consumption, and eating fried noodles, fried chicken, fried rice, roti canai, fast foods, French fries, junk food, those are list of foods which has trans fat content. Those are recipes for heart disease!

Now, let's talk about synthesis of cholesterol, how it is manufactured in the liver and gut. The fundamental building block for cholesterol, is a substance called Acetyl CoA. Synthesis of cholesterol is horribly complicated.  The liver is quite capable of turning one type of chemical into any other type of chemical. It can turn protein into sugar, sugar into fat, glycerol into glucose, etc. If you eat a great deal of carbohydrate, the liver will then convert excess glucose into fat.

Let me ask of all you. What sort of fat does the liver choose to make in this situation? Would it be unsaturated fat? The answer would be NO. When the liver makes fats, it makes saturated fats, and saturated fats alone. God, how come our liver does not know saturated fat is 'bad' for us ? Or perhaps the liver knows that saturated fats are not actually unhealthy at all? Think folks, connect the dots, and figure it out. Our body is built and designed as survival mechanism. I'll let you decide if saturated fat is unhealthy or the other way round.

Now, I would like to enlighten you guys about so called 'good' and 'bad' cholesterol. To whoever created this stupid mind boggling term, this person should won first prize in "Idiology medicine 101 contest". What happen to health and medicine industries, especially doctors who studied about cholesterol in the body? I would consider a doctor pathetic, if he or she thinks or agrees that LDL and HDL are good and bad cholesterol. Period! No debate, no argument here.

Let's go back to basics of cholesterol. Cholesterol 101 lesson. For those 'qualified doctors' out there reading this post, you might want to revise your learning and understanding about cholesterol fundamentals. First of all, cholesterol does not dissolve in water. It does not dissolve in blood too. That means, it has to be transported around the body inside a small transportation molecule, known as Lipoprotein. Yes folks, lipoprotein, a type of protein, and NOT cholesterol! Another substance which cannot dissolve in blood is fat. So, fat also travel about as part of lipoproteins. So, get the picture here? Fats and cholesterol are passengers inside lipoproteins.

Now, as we all thought that there are only 2 types of lipoproteins, which is LDL and HDL. The truth is, there are more then 2 types, and the biggest is called Chylomicron. This particular lipioprotein is manufactured in the guts. After a meal, it fills up with triglyceride, alongside a relatively small amount of cholesterol. The chylomicron then travels straight to fat cells in the body without passing through the liver. When the chylomicron reaches fat cells, the triglyceride is sucked out, and the chylomicron shrivels up into little remnant, is the hoovered by the liver.

One level down the size from chylomicron, is a lipoprotein known as very low density lipoprotein (VLDL). VLDLs are manufactured in both the guts and the liver. VLDLs are usually referred as 'triglycerides'. A further level down in size is the intermediate density lipoprotein, IDL. This is formed when a VLDL loses triglyceride to fat cells, and shrinks. So far, the world seem to have been spared worrying about IDL levels. I would think that IDL would be the new danger to health in time to come. Let's wait and see.

Moving on, When the IDL shrinks to a level even further down in size, it becomes, the low density lipoprotein, LDL. Now, ladies and gentlemen, health professionals including doctors and nutritionists, pronounce it slowly in a awestruck voice. Low..Density...Lipoprotein. So, is it cholesterol? Of course not for god sake! So, stop calling it cholesterol. I really do not know how some doctors got their degree. Were they been asleep the whole time during lectures? It's really ashamed certain doctors called themselves health professionals when they don't even know the facts about cholesterol and blood lipids. No wonder everyone is confused when the terminology used is completely bonkers.

Next, we have HDL, and again, it has been termed as 'good' cholesterol. Another killer, absurdly stupid and people lead to believe that it is really a good type of cholesterol. Folks, HDL is not even a cholesterol, same with LDL. It is believed that HDL 'removes' cholesterol from plaques in arteries and transports it back to the liver for reprocessing. But, so far, there hasn't been any scientific evidence or proof to show how this was done and the mechanism involved. It is believed that HDL protects against heart disease.

Let me tell you, it is NOT true. Studies after studies showed that HDL has no relation with risk of heart disease. One good example is the HERS study. The study showed that HDL went up, so did the risk of heart disease. Then, we have studies conducted in Poland and USA where the rate of heart disease was going up very rapidly in Poland and down in the USA. The assumption behind the study was that the HDL levels would be high in the USA and low in Poland. But guess what, the HDL levels is higher in Poland compared to USA.

Next, we have the study done in a small town of northern Italy, where lots of people have low HDL levels and low rates of heart disease. All these three studies are enough to demolish the hypothesis of HDL protects against heart disease. Is HDL a 'good' cholesterol? Yeah right.