The Cholesterol Conundrum
- Holly
- May 31, 2019
- 5 min read
Updated: Jun 1, 2019
Don't eat egg yolks. Stay away from red meat. Cook with margarine not butter.
These sentences probably sound familiar and if you are not well tapped into modern health culture, they probably sound like good nutrition advice. I mean, they are telling you to avoid saturated fats which increases cholesterol, so what can be bad about that?
For so long we have been avoiding nutrient dense foods like red meat and whole eggs because we thought we were doing our hearts a favor by keeping our cholesterol low. Turns out- most of the time having high cholesterol isn't an indicator for heart disease.
Part of the problem was that initial studies fed cholesterol to rabbits, who then developed severe heart disease (I need my face palm emoji HERE). After these conclusive studies confirmed that high cholesterol in rabbits leads to heart disease, we determined that it must be true for humans as well.
What is the biggest problem you see with this? What did you say? OH, that rabbits have never been carnivores so they never naturally consume cholesterol? Interesting and YES! Of course their bodies are not going to process cholesterol the same way ours would.
Furthermore, a study performed out of UCLA in 2018, examined 136,905 heart attack cases nationally, and about 75% of the cases were all in their healthy cholesterol range. Which if HIGH cholesterol is the issue, why are all these people in healthy ranges still having heart attacks?
Also, study after study fails to show a strong correlation between dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol.
Turns out, just like everything else that we try to package in a nice little box can't be wrapped up so neatly. Let's do a quick crash course on cholesterol. Cholesterol are lipoproteins which can be consumed through food, but actually most of the cholesterol in our blood stream is produced by our liver. The inside of cholesterol is fat, and the outside is protein. Cholesterol travels around your body through the bloodstream, delivering nutrients to cells, after which they return to the liver where they are recycled. Cholesterol plays a vital role in vitamin D and hormone production, and it also aids in digestion.
There are two types of cholesterol:
HDL: High-density lipoproteins, otherwise known as the good kind. As their name suggests, they are higher in density and tend to be bigger and fluffier in nature. Their job is to go to different areas of the body and pick up the cholesterol that was already there and transport it back to the liver for recycling. This is why HDL is considered good (and it is!) because it keeps cholesterol out of the blood stream.
LDL: Low-density lipoproteins, and yup, you guessed it, this is the "bad" kind. Not entirely bad, but can become problematic. The job of the LDL is to travel to the body parts and deliver cholesterol (which is good and necessary), but sometimes they are delivering too much which puts too much fat in the blood stream which can be dangerous.
The normal recommendation is that your total cholesterol should not be over 200 mg/dL. The breakdown goes like this: your HDL should be above 45 mg/dL (differs slightly for men vs. women- if you want specifics message me), but your LDL should be below 100 mg/dL. Studies have also shown that the higher your HDL the lower your chance of heart disease, so you actually CAN have high cholesterol and be in good shape.
The last 4 times my cholesterol was tested, I was really close to 200 mg/dL, but that was because my HDL was well over 100, and my LDL was less than half of my HDL. Making for a "scary" number, but when you look at the ratio it was over 2:1, HDL to LDL which is actually quite healthy. The ratio of your HDL:LDL makes a huge difference when considering your cholesterol profile.
Other factors to look at when analyzing your cholesterol profile are stress, activity levels, your eating habits, and your triglycerides. Stress and activity levels will determine how much and how well your body is metabolizing what you are eating which has a significant impact on what remains in the blood stream. Your eating habits will also dictate this, not just by looking at saturated fats, but by looking at the quantity and quality of what you are putting in your body. If you follow SAD (standard American diet) then chances are good that your carbohydrate intake, including sugar, is quite high. Where do triglycerides come into play you might ask? I'm getting there!
Here is the true skinny my friends. The problem overall with heart disease is a build up of plaque in the arteries which restricts, and can even block, blood flow, which is a result of having too much fat in the bloodstream. What people fail to remember, is that cholesterol isn't the only fat wandering around your arteries. Triglycerides are formed when you consume calories that your body does not burn. Wanna guess what triglycerides are made of? Yup... FAT. These puffy fat molecules also wander around the bloodstream and while it is near impossible to tell which fat particles are causing the plaque buildup, the correlation between high triglycerides and heart disease is stronger than high cholesterol and heart disease.
Have you looked at the standard American plate recently? Filled with huge portions and followed by even huger desserts, it's no wonder that people have heart disease. The standard American's triglyceride profile is through the roof. People want to point at cholesterol and say that it's the problem because it's easier to believe and it's easier to avoid. It's also harder to binge on, which, no shade on anyone because I am certainly guilty too, but when was the last time you binged on eggs and red meat? Oh, never? Interesting...
Just a quick note specifically on those "terrible" egg yolks that you have been avoiding. Here is what you are missing out on when you skip them: vitamins A, D, E and K along with omega-3 fats. They are rich in folate, choline, and vitamin B12. The yolks are also packed with amino acids that help prevent heart disease.
Sorry America, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but your grass-fed ribeye is not the problem. The sheer quantity and quality of most the food you are choosing to ingest is not just making you struggle with your weight, it's making you sick. Cardiovascular disease remains the number one killer of Americans and until we take a good long look in the mirror and truly acknowledge what research (and common sense) is telling us, it's going to stay that way.
Eat the yolks, people. It will be a step in the right direction.
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