One camp claims that fat, butter, meats don’t give you high cholesterol and atherosclerosis, and another camp – more traditional medicine tells you to limit your cholesterol intake especially if you have CAD. One thing both camps seem to agree on is that pickling your liver with alcohol and eating a lot of sugary foods will cause harm. Why the debate? I err on the side of caution and eat a low fat diet, don’t drink alcohol, and am cautious with sugary foods as I have mild CAD. Whom do I believe?
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The cholesterol hypothesis is that high saturated fat intake/high cholesterol intake/high LDL cholesterol/high LDL cholesterol/high LDL particle count/high LP(a) (choose whichever one you like) leads to fat accumulating inside the arteries and that is what causes artherosclerosis.
If that theory is true, it should allow us to explain all of the big drivers for CVD.
The reality is that it does a really poor job – there are tons of things that are well-established to increase CVD risk but have no effect on any of factors I listed above. Here’s a short list:
* Diabetes
* Smoking
* Air pollution
* Lead exposure
* Lupus
* Steroid use
* Cushing’s disease
* Hasinmoto’s disease
* etc.
There is a theory that explains all of these – it views CVD in terms of arterial damage and repair. Things that raise risk increase damage and/or reduce repair, things that lower risk decrease damage or improve repair. There are links from pretty much everything I listed to that theory.
There are two big disadvantages to that theory…
First, it is not compatible with pharma being able to make hundreds of billions of dollars selling statins.
Second, it is not compatible with food companies that really want to sell as much food as possible made from cheap grains, cheap oils, and cheap sugar.
It’s also not compatible with those who have philosophical or religions complaints about meat eating.
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