The bro-science squad at T-Nation recently tried to tackle the cholesterol controversy, a subject that I’ve covered in depth and explained using real common sense and science from the fields of biology, physiology, and biochemistry. Let’s see how they did.
And yes, this is a very long article, and likely one of the most important ones ever written on the subject, so sit back and dig in!
“Google the word “cholesterol” and most of the info you’ll find is about lowering it. The most common questions? Can I eat eggs? How about shrimp and other high-cholesterol foods? Are they “safe?”
Well, the amount of cholesterol in the food you eat doesn’t appear to matter much at all. Your body makes cholesterol on its own, pretty much no matter what. Eat a lot of cholesterol and your body makes less. Eat less cholesterol and your body makes more.”
Yes, your body will always regulate your cholesterol levels based on what is needed — as long as you either have sufficient building materials to manufacture your own or get sufficient cholesterol from your diet. And that is why retarded plant-based diets lower life-essential cholesterol as they neither have the building blocks, as in saturated fats (needed for LDL,) nor the cholesterol itself. And as you should know, every cell in our body is built of cholesterol and cholesterol is the most crucial component in any kind of repair/healing of cells/tissue. And simply from understanding this, you should be able to figure out why cholesterol levels are high in most people.
“Yes, food matters in determining your cholesterol levels, but it has little to do with the amount of cholesterol in that food. Instead, cholesterol levels have to do with a couple of other issues:
- The amount and type of carbs in that food.
- The amount of saturated fat you eat in combination with the cholesterol you ingest.”
This can impact cholesterol levels, but let’s see if you understand why. And more importantly, however it is important.
Carbs and Cholesterol
“If someone regularly eats a lot of simple carbs, they often develop insulin resistance, leading to increased blood sugar levels. Along with this comes an increase in the rate at which fats are broken down. This leads to elevated levels of blood fats or triglycerides. You also find a decrease in good cholesterol (HDL) and an increase in bad cholesterol (LDL).”
The “type” of carb is irrelevant. It does not matter if it’s “simple carbs” or “complex carbs” or whatever, as all types of carbohydrates will break down to glucose and elevate your blood glucose above normal safe levels and thus do damage to all soft tissues and organs. The only reason why retarded “researchers” and “doctors” mention “simple carbs” is because it is much more readily available in most processed foods and it tends to be the larger part of most people’s carbohydrate intake. With that said, it has nothing to do with biochemistry and how the body actually works. A carbohydrate is a carbohydrate and the toxic load and damage will be pretty much the same no matter its absorption rate. Actually, slow “carbs” might be more problematic as you get a longer exposure of elevated blood glucose, although slightly lower levels, but it means longer exposure to sensitive tissues that will take damage. I’ve covered this in many articles.
And again, HDL is not “good” and LDL is not “bad.” These are simply carrier proteins, the transporters of cholesterol. Saying that one is good and one is bad shows complete lack of intelligence and understanding of very simple physiology and biochemistry. LDL transports cholesterol to tissues that need it for repair while HDL transports unused or damaged cholesterol back to the liver to be recycled or discarded. Transporting the much needed cholesterol to damaged tissue can never be bad.
And carbohydrates, which turn into glucose and raise blood glucose always have to be dealt with first, as elevated blood glucose is extremely unnatural, unhealthy and damages your tissues and organs. And while blood glucose is being mitigated, any fats you also consumed will simply sit around in the bloodstream until glucose levels are back at normal. Now, the big problem with this is that glucose damages (glycation) any type of fat and can also damage cholesterol, including LDL. And that is why some imbeciles say that LDL is bad, simply because some brainwashed people consume carbohydrates with their fats that damage both the saturated fats and a portion of the LDL.
If you keep blood glucose at normal natural levels, as when following a fat-based natural diet, LDL is not damaged and thus perfectly safe as it only delivers cholesterol to tissues in need of repair.
“This triumvirate of heart terror – high triglycerides, low HDL, and high LDL – is thought to play a big role in plaque buildup in the arteries. Too much plaque and you’ll start clutching your chest at inopportune times.”
No, that is not how it works. Elevated blood glucose damages the blood vessels and arteries, and so does any kind of plant-based unsaturated fat, as most of these are oxidized (rancid) and they will also be glycated by the presence of elevated blood glucose, making them extremely toxic.
If you consume a lot of carbohydrates and/or seed/vegetable oils, you will have a lot of damage to all your soft tissues which means that your body will do its best to heal these tissues, hence elevated cholesterol levels and especially LDL as that transporter protein carries the precious cholesterol to the damaged tissue.
However, if you continue to consume a lot of carbohydrates, the elevated blood glucose will damage some of the LDL by the act of glycation and thus this LDL and its cholesterol will become more or less useless.
Now, both damaged plant-based unsaturated fats (oxidation and glycation,) damaged saturated fats from glycation (due to carbohydrates,) and damaged LDL from glycation (due to carbohydrates) can stick to the walls of blood vessels and arteries, especially since LDL will still try to repair the damage. But since the cholesterol has been damaged, bits of it will not make it into new tissue but instead cause a build-up, just as damaged seed/vegetable oil will stick to the walls of arteries and blood vessels.
So, while damaged LDL or saturated fats, by the idiotic act of consuming carbohydrates, can contribute to plaque, it’s quite miniscule compared to the plaque build-up of seed/vegetable oils as they are always oxidized to begin with, and glycation only worsen the situation.
And if you have more than half a brain, unlike the guys at T-Nation, you should have figured out by now that the real culprit is the carbohydrates and seed/vegetable oils. You can only get plaque and other kinds of damage to your cardiovascular system and heart if you consume carbohydrates and/or seed/vegetable oils. It’s impossible to get any such damage or problems on our natural carnivorous diet, which should be obvious. So, simply remove these unnatural and deadly components from your diet, and you will no longer do any damage to your arteries and your LDL will be intact and undamaged and your body can finally repair and heal itself. Simple, logical, and common sense.
“But you don’t necessarily have to be insulin-resistant for carbs to negatively affect cholesterol levels. Just being a carb junkie and having more than about 60% of your daily calories come from carbohydrates (especially heavily processed carbs) tells the liver to start manufacturing more cholesterol.”
60% carbs is idiotic. Any amount of carbs is idiotic. Remove ALL carbohydrates and there will be no damage and no need for elevated levels of cholesterol for mitigating the damage.
However, as a note, it will take many years to repair tissue damage from abnormal glucose levels, so even if you adopt our species-appropriate carnivorous diet, your cholesterol levels and LDL levels can be elevated for many years before they start to come down naturally as tissues heal and become healthy again. Actually, cholesterol levels can rise a lot higher for a long time as your body can finally heal. That is normal and a very good thing if you eat according to your species. High cholesterol simply means that it is needed and that you are healing. However, it is only a good thing if you follow our natural diet or a ketogenic diet. If you consume a lot of carbohydrates, you will damage a lot of that cholesterol, hindering the healing and potentially contributing to even more plaque. Not very smart.
Sorry for being long-winded, but these clowns at T-Nation do not understand the subject they’re writing about, so I have to provide some real and useful information — while also explaining what is actually happening in the body and why. And that is something that should be the pillars of any article and especially when helping or coaching people. If you can’t explain the biology and biochemistry behind your recommendations, you’re better off cleaning toilets than ruining people’s health (that goes for 99% of all coaches and nutritionists and 99.99% of all doctors and dieticians.)
Saturated Fat and Cholesterol
“Now it gets tricky. The cholesterol in food does matter if you eat a lot of cholesterol in combination with a lot of saturated fat.
For example, most red meat contains a lot of saturated fat and a significant amount of cholesterol, so when you eat it regularly, you usually see an increase in LDL cholesterol. The good news is that the saturated-fat-laden steak also raises HDL cholesterol, so your total cholesterol to HDL ratio (a supposed marker for cardiovascular disease) isn’t altered.”
You frikkin’ dimwits. Saturated fats contribute to the production of LDL cholesterol in the body. When you consume saturated fats, your liver produces more LDL cholesterol, which can then carry cholesterol to tissues and cells in need throughout your body. So, as most people today do not follow our species-appropriate carnivore diet and instead consume toxic carbohydrates and seed/vegetable oils, they have a lot of tissue damage, especially in their cardiovascular system. If they increase their consumption of, for example, red meat and thus get more saturated fats, what do you think will happen? Yes, their body will finally have some building blocks and resources to produce more LDL to aid in repairing that damaged tissue, and that is exactly what their body will do as it will always do anything it can to keep you alive.
And if LDL goes up due to more resources, HDL will likely go up as well in most people as their diet is still far from perfect and healing is likely slowed down due to other nutrient deficiencies or a high toxic load due to plant-based and/or processed crap. In other words, the diet is still not good enough to make use of all that cholesterol and some will be transported back by HDL to the liver. Although cholesterol is the main component in tissue repair, other essential nutrients are needed as well.
In a perfect scenario, as in transitioning to our natural diet and starting to heal, LDL will go up while HDL will go down, showing us that the cholesterol is actually used by the tissues and not transported back unused. Again, logical and common sense.
Unfortunately, those who are indoctrinated with “medical” pseudoscience and want to make money out of this confusion, selling you cholesterol lowering drugs, will present all this backwards, never explaining to you what LDL actually does and what cholesterol is needed for. Those people should be behind bars for life.
“So, in general, high-ish cholesterol foods that don’t contain a lot of saturated fat like eggs and shrimp won’t affect LDL cholesterol levels, but high-cholesterol, high-saturated fat foods like steaks and other cuts of red meat will.”
This statement really shows that the guys at T-Nation do not understand what LDL and HDL does in the body, nor do they understand the extreme importance of cholesterol.
High cholesterol foods are extremely good, beneficial and healthy, and so are foods high in saturated fats or foods high in both, as our bodies are made of saturated fats and cholesterol. Also, saturated fats is our natural energy source, the nutrient that should make up the largest part of our diet. And if you do not need extra cholesterol for tissue repair or hormone function, the body will simply use all it needs and discard the rest.
“However, red meat shouldn’t affect your long-term cardiovascular health because it doesn’t appear to affect the LDL/HDL ratio. So, the question is, should you eat steak and hamburgers with impunity?”
Steak yes. Hamburger, as in the meat patty, yes, as long as there is no toxic sandwich bun. All meats are good, but red meat is best, as in the meat from ruminant animals. It is what we as humans and obligate hyper carnivores are constructed to eat. It is our species-specific, species-appropriate natural diet.
So, What Causes Heart Attacks?
“Doctors can’t agree on what causes heart disease. Sure, there are some statistical probabilities pointing to the wisdom of lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, but they don’t mean squat if you’re one of the roughly 50 percent of men or 63 percent of women who die from heart attacks while not exhibiting any symptoms or strong risk factors.”
Doctors are indoctrinated idiots. I should know as I studied medicine and pharmacology for almost 17 years, the biggest waste of time ever. Well, it did show me how their backwards and retarded thinking works, making it extremely easy to debunk anything they spit out of their arrogant pie holes.
Artificially lowering cholesterol is the most retarded thing you can do, which should be obvious by now.
“The only thing that doctors and scientists seem to agree on is that heart disease is a disease of inflammation. What’s common to just about everyone who dies of a heart attack is a large collection of white blood cells known as macrophages. These macrophages collect around fatty deposits and secrete enzymes that digest protein. The insides of blood vessels are made of proteins, and in trying to eliminate the fatty deposits, the blood vessels are eaten away, made thinner, and made more susceptible to plaque or rupture.”
Inflammation is a part of the healing process, it’s not something that you should try to interfere with and absolutely not lower, as that would mean that you stop the healing, which would be extremely moronic and will cut your lifespan by a large margin.
Again, blood vessels, nerves, organs and other soft tissues (especially the eyes and even the ears) are damaged by elevated blood glucose, as in consuming carbohydrates, which we can see in those who have taken so much damage that they have been diagnosed as “diabetics.” Of course, seed/vegetable oils contribute to this as well, as these fatty acids are not chemically compatible with human physiology and need to be converted. However, most of these fatty acids are already rancid, as in oxidized, even before consumption. So, the small part of the oil that is still intact might be converted by a very low ratio, producing even more oxidized fatty acids and other toxic chemical residues in the process. Also, both the oxidized and intact fatty acids will be prone to glycation from the elevated blood glucose, making them even more toxic and likely to end up in tissues, such as blood vessels as plaque. And even worse, just like glucose can damage LDL and cholesterol, oxidized plant-based fatty acids can damage LDL particles, rendering them useless and making them into a potential addition to plaque. Although all this is very well established in all fields of research and science, it’s never talked about. I wonder why that is. Oh yes, the Food Industry and Big Pharma work together to keep us sick, weak, and dependent.
And again, your body will try to repair this damage by increasing cholesterol and LDL levels, but if you continue to consume carbohydrates and/or seed/vegetable oils, some of that cholesterol and LDL will be damaged as well. And it is all of this that contributes to cardiovascular disease and heart attacks. And the common denominator, the underlying cause, is carbohydrates, as in elevated blood glucose, and seed/vegetable oils. Simple, logical, and common sense.
Note that this means that dirty ketogenic diets (only fat and protein) where imbeciles still use seed and/or vegetable oils will experience cardiovascular damage, albeit at a slower rate than those consuming carbohydrates (which explains why studies show conflicting results on heart health and keto diets vs standard diets.) Only a diet of animal-based fats and protein is totally safe as it is our natural and species-appropriate food.
As for macrophages they form to aid in the breakdown of plaque, as in digesting lipoproteins and other debris. They are natural and very beneficial, at least in a normal healthy human following his or her species-appropriate diet. And remember, your body will never produce or do anything that can hurt you. Survival of the species is always the highest priority. So yes, you guessed it. Just like proteins, fatty acids and cholesterol/LDL, macrophages can also be damaged by high levels of blood glucose due to the idiotic consumption of carbohydrates and/or the presence of oxidized or glycated unsaturated fats from seed/vegetable oils! This is why some imbeciles believe that macrophages can contribute to cardiovascular disease. Again, this can only happen if you consume carbohydrates and/or seed/vegetable oils, which is not natural for a human being. And this once again proves that these plant-based compounds are extremely toxic and should not be a part of the human diet. Simple, logical, and common sense.
Do you see a common thread yet?
“What surprised researchers, though, was that they also found these macrophages in presumably healthy arteries. This indicated that the inflammation was systemic and not localized.”
Surprised? macrophages are there to assist in healing and removing debris. Even a “healthy artery” will have minor damage in people who consume carbohydrates and/or seed oils and thus there will be a presence of macrophages.
If you consume carbohydrates and/or seed oils, it will affect the contents of your blood, as in elevated blood glucose and increased damaged lipids. Your blood is distributed to every little part of your body, and all those blood vessels and soft tissues will be susceptible to damage. However, usually it’s the lower extremities that take damage first as feet and lower legs are the farthest away from the heart and circulation is lower, making it harder and slower to clear out glucose and also to transport nutrients to tissues for repair.
And again, wherever there is damage from toxins and inappropriate foods, there will be inflammation as it is part of the healing process. So, if you consume a lot of carbohydrates and/or seed oils the damage will take place all over your body in various degrees, hence systemic inflammation.
What Should I Do?
I will cut this short, as the evil charlatans at T-Nation immediately recommended their toxic supplements, the typical band-aid solution.
With that said, they did go on and provide a small list of bullet points, none of them addressing the real problems though, as usual.
- “Avoid lots of carbs, especially highly processed carbs. Carbs raise cholesterol and triglycerides while reducing HDL levels. More importantly, the resulting insulin resistance leads to inflammation, which is definitely bad for the heart”
Not “insulin resistance” that’s a made-up man-made word. The elevated levels of blood glucose (and also plant-based unsaturated fats) damages all cells, and over time the damage will be so critical that they no longer can store glucose as glycogen or the cell will die. So, cells simply shut down and refuse to take in glucose. This will happen gradually.
As the damage accumulates, the cell will store less and less glucose and eventually it will shut down. This is not a build-up of “resistance to insulin,” it’s a natural effect of accumulated damage and ultimately a survival mechanism as the cell shuts down. And simply administering exogenous insulin, as seen with deceived diabetics, will force damaged cells to take on more glucose than they normally would, speeding up the damage and the destruction of the cell. That is why you need to change your diet, not force your body to neutralize those toxic carbohydrates by adding more insulin. That is the definition of insanity.
So, you should cut out ALL carbs and ALL plant-based oils. Humans are not meant to consume carbohydrates or artificially made oils.
Now, we can tolerate small amounts of carbohydrates if we’re active, as in being out hunting and scavenging, and thus only consuming what nature can naturally provide, which only includes some seasonal fruits and berries. And the few that actually existed naturally would be small, bitter and only provide 5 to 10 grams of carbohydrates, and not several hundred grams as most retarded diets do today. Such small amounts, as in 10 grams or so in one sitting, would be used as energy within 30 minutes and not contribute to any significant or prolonged increase of blood glucose and thus very little and manageable damage. And this is why athletes can get away with consuming some carbohydrates as long as they stay very active. But again, that is a band-aid approach that is very unhealthy and idiotic. Simply remove the carbs and you will perform even better, as gluconeogenesis is more effective and a lot faster at providing glucose during exercise than to get it from food or drinks or relying on stored glycogen — and your health will improve too if you adopt our natural human diet!
- “Improve insulin sensitivity in general to keep inflammation low.”
No, simply cut out all carbohydrates as any amount will do damage. Insulin has nothing to do with it.
- “It looks like eating foods high in cholesterol but low in saturated fats, like eggs and shrimp, won’t negatively affect your health.”
You guys at T-Nation have no clue about how this works. We already covered this. Eat all the saturated fat and cholesterol that you want. No need to even think about food choices if you follow our natural diet. Simply eat fatty red meat until satisfied. Have some eggs and perhaps some extra tallow or butter and the occasional organ meats. Simple, healthy, and natural.
- “Meats high in saturated fat and cholesterol are probably okay to eat in moderation because they elevate both HDL and LDL, thus leaving the total cholesterol ratio unaffected. However, eating too much saturated fat regularly leads to inflammation, which the heart doesn’t like.”
No, saturated fats are natural. They can only “turn” bad if consumed together with a lot of carbohydrates as high blood glucose levels can lead to some glycation, damaging a small portion of these fatty acids (as with any source of fat.) However, that is not the fault of saturated fats as that is what you are supposed to consume, that is your fault for being a stupid asshat and consuming carbohydrates.
You cannot blame our body for this as we are not supposed to consume carbohydrates, and that is quite obvious because of glycation and the damage elevated blood glucose does to our entire body.
- “Substituting polyunsaturated fat (like olive oil) for saturated fat in cooking reduces LDL cholesterol and total cholesterol so that you get a better cholesterol ratio (LDL to HDL).”
T-Nation, you frikkin’ useless imbeciles. Olive oil contains plant-based chemically incompatible unsaturated fats, very prone to oxidation and glycation. All plant-based fats are toxic! That is the kind of fat that will damage your cardiovascular system and also damage your LDL cholesterol! And lowering LDL is idiotic, as that means lowering your healing. Frikkin’ retards!
- “De-stress as much as possible.”
That is the only sensible advice you had, but it’s easier said than done for most people, especially when you do not provide any tips or context. Simply saying “de-stress” is not much of a help.
But Just in Case…
“It’s possible that high cholesterol might someday prove to be the demon it’s been portrayed as. Maybe the scientists will reconcile the apparent contradictions in the data. Given that possibility, it’s smart to be at least a little proactive about cholesterol, especially if your numbers look very bad.”
Did you write that wrong? Did you mean to write “it’s possible that high cholesterol might someday prove NOT to be the demon it’s been portrayed as?”
Whatever you meant, you’re wrong.
While cholesterol is good and essential, abnormally high cholesterol levels are bad, because it indicates that you have done damage to your body that it is trying to heal. It means that your diet is or has been very toxic. With that being said, it’s very hard to say what a normal level of cholesterol would be as all people today have a lot of tissue damage and most people are also nutrient deficient and not able to produce the cholesterol they need to heal. Thus, any reference points used are invalid and totally useless.
However, high cholesterol as described by the “medical community” is not something to fight or be worried about. What you need to fight and worry about is what caused the damage, as in your diet. The only way to heal and to normalize your cholesterol levels is to remove the offenders, as in the carbohydrates, the seed/vegetable oils, and all the plant-based and processed foods.
The best way to do this is to adopt our species-appropriate natural human diet. At first, cholesterol and LDL levels will increase as healing is finally taking place at its maximum level. But eventually, as your body heals, cholesterol will come down and once fully healed, levels will be normalized and stable. This may take a few years or even 10 years or longer. But it will increase your quality of life, your cognition and energy levels, and it will increase your lifespan. Remember, if you have been damaging your body since you were a kid, you cannot reverse all that damage in a few months or even a year. It takes time. But any delay to making that decision, any delay to assist your body to heal and become healthy will strip you of that life quality and your lifespan. So, make that switch to our natural diet today! Become healthy! Become the best version of you!
If you need help with any kind of health problems or transitioning from your current way of eating to our natural species-appropriate, species-specific way of eating, I’m available for both coaching and consultation.
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