The great cholesterol hoax, by Dr Dwight Lundell

We, the doctors, with all our training, the knowledge and the authority that one acquires, tend to increase our ego and hardly admit that we were wrong. And yet, I have to confess that I was wrong. As a heart surgeon, with 25 years of experience, with more than 5000 open heart surgeries, today the time has come to repair the damage through medical and scientific facts. I have been training other doctors for many years, of those who are later labeled as "opinion makers."

Beset by scientific literature, continuously attending seminars, opinion makers have insisted that coronary heart disease is the result of simply having very high blood cholesterol levels. The only accepted therapy has been to prescribe medications to lower cholesterol and a very fat restricted diet. Lower fat consumption would result in a decrease in the amount of cholesterol and coronary heart disease would be reduced.

Any deviation from these recommendations was considered a heresy and resulted in the realization of medical malpractice. But it is not working! These recommendations are neither scientifically nor morally defensible. The discovery a few years ago that inflammation in the arterial wall is the real cause of heart disease, is what is slowly leading to a paradigm shift in the way heart disease and other chronic ailments are treated. . Long-established dietary recommendations have caused epidemics of obesity and diabetes, consequences that dwarf any other historical plague in terms of mortality, human suffering and serious economic consequences.

Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin-based medications, and despite the fact that we have reduced the amount of fat present in our diet, more and more people die from diseases that affect the heart. Statistics from the American Heart Association indicate that 75 million Americans suffer from heart disease, 20 million suffer from diabetes and 57 million pre-diabetes. These disorders increasingly affect younger people, in greater numbers each year. Simply put, without body inflammation it is not possible for cholesterol to accumulate in the walls of blood vessels and thus cause heart disease and strokes. Without inflammation, cholesterol moves freely throughout the body; It is inflammation that causes cholesterol to be trapped. Inflammation is not a complex process, it is simply a natural reaction of the body to foreign invaders, such as bacteria, toxins or viruses. The inflammatory cycle is a way of protecting the body against bacterial and viral invaders. However, if our body is chronically exposed to toxins or food that the human body is not prepared to process, then chronic inflammation occurs. Chronic inflammation is as harmful as acute inflammation is beneficial.

What sensible person would intentionally expose himself repeatedly to food or other substances that he knows cause bodily harm? Well, maybe smokers, but at least it is a voluntary decision. The rest we just follow the recommended diet, low fat and high in polyunsaturated fats and carbohydrates, without knowing that we are causing repeated attacks on our blood vessels. This repeated aggression produces a chronic inflammation that leads to heart disease, strokes, diabetes and obesity.

Let me repeat it: the injury and inflammation of our blood vessels is caused by a low-fat diet, something recommended for years by conventional medicine. Who are the biggest culprits of chronic inflammation? Simply put, the overload of simple carbohydrates and highly processed foods (sugar, flour and all derived products) and an excess consumption of vegetable oils with omega-6, such as soybean, corn and sunflower oils, which are They are present in many processed foods.

Visualize the following: a hard brush that repeatedly rubs on the skin until it reddens and bleeds, this for several times a day, thus daily for 5 years. If this brushing was tolerated, there would be bleeding, swelling of the affected area, which would become worse as the aggression repeats. This is a good way to visualize the inflammatory process, and it is what could be happening in your body right now. Regardless of where the inflammatory process occurs, either internally or externally, it is the same. I have observed the interior of thousands and thousands of arteries. A diseased artery looks as if someone had taken a brush and rubbed it several times against the walls. Several times a day, every day, the food we eat produces small lesions, on which others occur, so that it is the cause of our body responding continuously with inflammation.

Although it is tempting to taste sweets, our bodies respond alarmingly, as if a strange invader declared war on us. Foods are loaded with sugar, simple carbohydrates, or processed with omega-6, one of the pillars of the American diet for several decades. These foods slowly poison us all. How does a simple candy produce a cascade of inflammations that makes the body sick? Imagine spraying the keyboard with honey; This is a visual representation of what happens inside the cell. When we consume simple carbohydrates, such as sugar, blood sugar levels rise rapidly. In response, the pancreas secretes insulin, whose main mission is that sugar reaches all the cells where energy is stored. But if the cell is full, if you do not need more glucose, the excess is rejected to avoid a dysfunction of the processes that are carried out inside. When cells reject excess glucose, blood sugar levels rise, increasing insulin production, and is stored as fat.

What does all this have to do with inflammation? The amount of blood sugar is controlled between very narrow maximum and minimum values. Sugar molecules bind to a wide variety of proteins, which damage the walls of blood vessels. This repeated lesion of the blood vessel walls triggers inflammation. When the blood sugar level rises several times a day, every day, it is like rubbing with sandpaper the delicate interior of the blood vessels. While you can't watch it, you can be sure it happens.

I have seen it in more than 5000 patients undergoing surgery during the 25 years that I have been exercising. They all had a common denominator: inflammation of the arteries. Let's return to the matter of sweets. Under their innocent appearance, they not only contain sugar, but are also made from omega-6 fatty acids, such as those from soybeans. The fries are fried with soybean oil, many processed foods are made with omega-6 fatty acids, so that they have a longer duration. While omega-6 fats are essential when forming part of the cell membrane, and thus control what enters and leaves the cell, they must be in a proper balance with omega-3. broken by the excessive consumption of omega-6 fatty acids, the cell membrane produces chemical substances called cytokines, which directly cause inflammation.

Today, the diet usually produces a very large imbalance between these two types of fatty acids. The imbalance ratio can be around 15: 1, or even 30: 1 in favor of omega-6 fatty acids. This produces a huge amount of cytokines that cause inflammation. Ideally, it would be a 3: 1 ratio to be healthy. To make matters worse, overweight causes an overload of fat cells that shed large amounts of pro-inflammatory chemicals, which adds to the injuries caused by high levels of blood sugar. The process that began by consuming sweet products becomes a vicious circle that over time generates heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and finally, Alzheimer's, if the process inflammatory does not decrease.

The fact that the more processed foods are consumed, the more the inflammation is triggered, a little every day. The human body cannot process, nor was it designed to consume, foods packaged with sugar and prepared with omega-6 fatty acids. There is no other solution to reduce inflammation than to consume food as close as possible to its natural state. To rebuild a muscle, more protein must be consumed. For energy choose complex carbohydrates, such as those present in fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Reduce or eliminate consumption of omega-6 fatty acids, such as corn oil and soy, and processed foods that have been made with these oils. One tablespoon of corn oil contains 7.280 mg of omega-6 fatty acids; soybean 6, 949 mg. Instead, use olive oil or butter, from grass-fed animals. Animal fats contain less than 20% omega-6 and are much less likely to cause inflammation than polyunsaturated oils, which are said to be supposedly healthy. It is not true that saturated fats cause heart disease.

Nor do blood cholesterol levels increase excessively. We now know that cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease, so worry about saturated fats is absurd today. Cholesterol theory led to the recommendation of non-fat, low-calorie foods, which led to the consumption of other foods that have caused this epidemic of inflammations.

Conventional medicine made a tremendous mistake when it advised people to avoid saturated fats in favor of foods rich in omega-6 fatty acids. Now we have an epidemic of inflammation of the arteries, which leads to heart disease and other silent deaths. What you can do is consume whole foods, which your grandmother knew, and it is not fashionable to consume so many processed foods. Eliminating the foods that produce inflammation and adding the essential nutrients present in unprocessed fresh foods, damage to the arteries and throughout your body would be reversed.

The great cholesterol hoax, by Dr Dwight Lundell

5 amazing ways to control cholesterol

For people fighting high cholesterol, the choice of meals can be a challenge, although their proper choice is essential ... restaurants, parties, even a small meeting in the office can present unhealthy temptations. However, simple dietary modifications can help you eliminate those unhealthy options:

Reduce sugar and flour. Recent research indicates that the addition of flour-based sweeteners and carbohydrates (white), which are too abundant in the diet, are the main contributors to obesity and heart disease.

Avoid trans fats. Stay away from products that list "partially hydrogenated oil" on labels, especially snacks such as microwave goodies or popcorn.

Use fresh garlic regularly in your meals. Garlic has been shown to help lower cholesterol levels.

Drink green tea every day. The antioxidants in green tea help reduce cholesterol and prevents blood cholesterol from oxidizing.

Eat a lot of soluble fiber. It has a powerful cholesterol lowering effect. The best sources are beans and lentils, apples, citrus, oats, barley, peas, carrots and ground flaxseed.

Source: Andrew Weil–

BioConscious

Adriana Zangarini

Holistic Health Coach