Doctor Claims Blood Sugar, Not Cholesterol Linked To Heart Disease

Dr. Ron Rosedale, a nationally known and respected expert on nutrition and health especially in regards to diabetes, has penned an article at Mercola.com which claims a person's blood sugar and not his cholesterol make him more likely to develop heart disease. This is groundbreaking material if you will examine this data he presents for yourself and should be on the front page of every newspaper, magazine and web site in the United States!

Dr. Rosedale has already written a book entitled The Rosedale Diet which advocates healthy low-carb eating with vitamin supplements and no prescription drugs to eliminate the need for insulin and to help prevent or significantly reduce the chances for heart disease.

In his article, "Cholesterol is NOT the Cause of Heart Disease," Dr. Rosedale states the longstanding notion that high cholesterol plays a role in heart disease is false. He explains that inflammation of the arteries can occur when cholesterol becomes oxidized and that the inflammation should be addressed, not the cholesterol itself. I love this analogy he used to make his point:

"Using the same conventional medical thinking that is being used for cholesterol would lead one to believe that doctors should reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease by taking out everybody's brain."

Yep, that'll solve the problem with Alzheimer's, won't it?! I'll have to use this one sometime!

Dr. Rosedale said the REAL cause of heart disease can be found in that innocent of all substances we consume on a daily basis -- SUGAR! He believes through his scientific studies that they "inflict on tissues, including the lining of arteries, causing chronic inflammation and resultant plaque." EWWW! He adds that this can cause some "cholesterol abnormalities" that make it appear than cholesterol is the culprit in the damage when in fact it is the sugar in the blood. Hmmmm.

The focus on the total cholesterol number is useless, Dr. Rosedale asserts because so-called LDL "bad" cholesterol can still "squeeze between the cells lining the inside of the arteries."

We've always been told to get our "bad" cholesterol number down so we don't clog our arteries. But Dr. Rosedale believes his studies have shown that "cholesterol does not cause heart disease, but improper metabolic signals including improper signals to cholesterol (causing it to oxidize) and perhaps to the liver that manufactures the cholesterol, will cause heart and vascular disease and hypertension."

Therefore, we should be looking at other possible causes for heart disease other than cholesterol. Dr. Rosedale reveals that getting rid of cholesterol (which he describes as the "Darth Vader" of what most people consider good heart health) will not solve the problem with heart disease and other health problems. He is especially critical of "statin" drugs like Lipitor and Crestor as nothing more than a way for drug companies to fatten their pockets (to the tune of $26 billion!) at the expense of scaring the public into lowering their cholesterol. He backs up that claim with some interesting associations that may make you wonder. Always follow the money!

Actually, Dr. Mercola said that lowering cholesterol "might not be as healthy as we are being told."

"More and more studies are coming out showing just how unhealthy lowering cholesterol might be, particularly by the use of statin drugs. In particular, statin drugs have been shown to be harmful to muscles causing considerable damage. A common symptom of this damage is muscular aches and pains that many patients experience on cholesterol-lowering drugs, however most do not realize that these drugs are to blame."

I used to take Lipitor and can attest that it caused so much pain in my joints that I had to stop taking it. I injured my thumb playing basketball because the muscles were so weak in that hand from taking the Lipitor. My chiropracter called it POISON and urged me to get off of it. So I did. I then turned to Crestor and did not have the same side effects. Maybe Dr. Mercola's findings will blow a hole wide open in this argument that we need "statin" drugs to be normal. What if it's all been a big lie?!

But he doesn't stop there. Dr. Rosedale said LOW cholesterol can actually "worsen patients with congestive heart failure, a life-threatening condition where the heart becomes too weak to effectively pump blood." YIKES!

"Statin drugs have been shown to also cause nerve damage and to greatly impair memory. One reason that statin drugs have these various serious side effects is that they work by inhibiting a vital enzyme that manufactures cholesterol in the liver. However, the same enzyme is used to manufacture coenzyme Q10, which is a biochemical needed to transfer energy from food to our cells to be used for the work of staying alive and healthy. Statin drugs are known to inhibit our very important production of coenzyme Q10. Importantly, while many cardiologists insist that lowering cholesterol is correlated with a reduction in the risk of heart attacks; few can say that there is a reduction in the risk of mortality (death). That has been much harder to show. In other words it has never been conclusively shown that lowering cholesterol saves lives. In fact, several large studies have shown that lowering cholesterol into the range currently recommended is correlated with an increased risk of dying, especially of cancer."

Now doesn't that throw a monkey wrench into everything you've ever known about cholesterol! So what are we supposed to believe? Is cholesterol good for us or not? Dr. Rosedale said there's no such thing as "good" and "bad" cholesterol because it's all "just cholesterol" which is carried through the blood.

In making his point, Dr. Rosedale presents another great analogy for people to understand what he is saying:

"There may be a weak correlation of elevated cholesterol with heart attacks, however this does not mean it is the cholesterol that caused the heart attack. Certainly gray hair is correlated with getting older; however one could hardly say that the gray hair caused one to get old. Using hair dye to reduce the gray hair would not really make you any younger. Neither it appears would just lowering your cholesterol.

Excellent! We automatically assume high cholesterol causes heart attacks, but why? Did one cause the other or is that what we assume because that's what we've always been told? Maybe Dr. Rosedale is on to something here we need to examine a bit further.

In fact, Dr. Rosedale goes so far as to describe cholesterol as the body's "hero" because it helps "to keep your cell membranes from falling apart" as a kind of cell "superglue."

"It is a necessary ingredient in any sort of cellular repair. The coronary disease associated with heart attacks is now known to be caused from damage to the lining of those arteries. That damage causes inflammation. The coronary disease that causes heart attacks is now considered to be caused mostly from chronic inflammation."

So it appears we've been lied to all these years when we've been told that cholesterol causes heart disease. Instead, it's the inflammation that causes the problems as the body attempts to repair the damage to the lining of the arteries. Rather than taking highly expensive "statin" drugs, Dr. Rosedale said you can take an aspirin, vitamin E and fish oil supplments, and make certain dietary changes to reverse the inflammation and prevent the heart problems from occuring.

Finally, on the subject of triglycerides, Dr. Rosedale said they are nothing more than the fat that flows through the bloodstream. If your body is producing too much fat that isn't being burned off for energy, then your triglycerides will go up and "this indeed is a major problem."

"The inability to burn fat underlies virtually all of the chronic diseases of aging, and in fact may contribute to the rate of aging itself. As such, one might think that the control [of] all fat burning and storage might be very important in heart disease, and the other diseases of aging such as diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis, and even cancer. Indeed, this appears to very much be the case."

And guess what kind of eating plan gets your body into fat-burning mode the best. It's livin' la vida low-carb, of course! And since sugar is such a problem when it comes to heart disease, the lack of it in your low-carb lifestyle means your heart will be healthy for a very long time. This is solid proof that the low-carb lifestyle really is the healthy alternative to low-fat I'm always hammering. THANK YOU, DR. ROSEDALE! You have done a great service for the low-carb community and for the sake of good health for anyone willing to heed your scientific advice!

E-mail Dr. Rosedale to thank him for his thorough research on this important subject and to continue to stand strong in the face of strong opposition.