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| CHOLESTEROL, TRULY A DEMON OR A DEMONIZED ANGEL? by Lane Sebring, M. D. | | We have all seen the commercials, beat into our heads daily, it does not matter how self actualized we may be if we have untreated high cholesterol we are nothing but a dumb failure; or so we are led to believe. Even those with the most rudimentary understanding of health can tell us that cholesterol is bad for us; or is it really. I am here to tell you a different story of cholesterol and how we have come to believe incorrectly that it exists only to give us grief. Did you know that cholesterol is an antioxidant? Cholesterol in fact is the most powerful antioxidant for brain cell membranes. I think that's important. Cholesterol’s irregular shape helps prevent crystallization of our cell membranes in all our cells and helps to maintain membrane fluidity. This improved fluidity allows nutrition to get into our cells more easily and helps facilitate waste product removal. Eighty percent of our cholesterol is made in our own liver, 20% comes from our diet. If our body is elevating our cholesterol it does not do so for without reason. Cholesterol helps the body defend itself against external toxins. In fact, elevated cholesterol can be a sign of toxicity. It is well known that doing a liver detox or a colon cleanse will lower cholesterol levels. It has also been demonstrated that removing heavy metals from the body will lower cholesterol. I have said that 80% of our cholesterol is made in our liver. Most is turned into bile but the enzymes that convert cholesterol into bile are shut off by high insulin levels. When this happens cholesterol is not turned into bile and gets dumped into the intestinal tract as cholesterol where it is promptly reabsorbed into the bloodstream. The Adkins diet, which lowers insulin levels, tends to lower cholesterol about 50 points. Cholesterol is made into our hormones including, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, cortisol and DHEA. Without these hormones not only would life not be any fun but we would be dead.
There are numerous studies around the world that show the people with the highest cholesterol lived the longest. It is a well-known fact among cardiologists that half the people with heart attacks have normal or low cholesterol; hardly a predictor of risk. A study done in 2005 that looked at people 65 and older and broke them into five categories according to their cholesterol level. The people with the very highest cholesterol had 70% less dementia, and fewer heart attacks. How low do you want your cholesterol to be? Another study checked the cholesterol level of the oldest resident in nursing homes. Now, you are typically looking at someone hovering around 100 years old. The average cholesterol for the oldest residents was 264. It is a well-known fact that higher cholesterol levels are associated with a decreased infection rate, including pneumonia. How low do you want your cholesterol?
Linus Pauling, a biochemist who won two Nobel prizes, put forth what he called the unified theory of heart disease. Google this, it is both stunning and compelling. If you were to cruise down a coronary artery that is suffering from cholesterol plaque buildup you would find that it is clean and pristine for a while and then you may encounter a large plaque of cholesterol. As you pass this the artery will be clean again and then further downstream you may encounter another cholesterol plaque. Pauling asked a question. Why is it here and why is there? He determined that these were areas of increased stress to the arterial wall. The collagen in these areas can develop cracks. If these cracks are not patched they could result in a blowout and death. If a person has good vitamin C levels, he contended, these cracks would heal almost immediately. Most of us do not get enough vitamin C and so these cracks do not readily heal. Now those animals that do not make vitamin C get heart disease. Those animals include humans other primates, guinea pigs and fruit bats. They also uniquely make a form of cholesterol called lipoprotein little a. It is made in higher amounts when animals are low on vitamin C. It also attaches to the crack in the collagen and then sequesters and lays down cholesterol as a patch. Now if that's the dynamics then your cholesterol level is of no consequence.
Statin drugs block the chain of chemical reactions that result in the production of cholesterol. It blocks this chain however, quite far upstream. The problem is one of the molecules made just before cholesterol is co-enzyme Q 10. Coenzyme Q 10 is required for life. Just 10 mg of a typical statin drug lowers coenzyme Q 10 levels 47% by the end of the first year. These same studies show that statin drugs can cause heart failure which can be reversed by stopping the drug or supplementing with Co enzyme Q 10 in a separate pill. The first statin drug, Mevacor, was produced by Merck. They have three patents on it with Co enzyme Q 10 in the same pill. They never used the patent and they never told anyone of the problem. In Japan all statin drugs require Co enzyme Q 10 to be in the same pill. In Europe it must be given in a separate prescription. Could it be it is not really our health they're trying to fix. Lane Sebring M. D. | |
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