Study: LDL 'Bad' Cholesterol Good For Elderly
Forget about everything you have heard regarding the so-called LDL "bad" cholesterol.
This recent study found that the lower levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in people aged 65 and older is leading to greater risk of heart disease and death.
Led by Dr. Valerie Tikhonoff from the University of Padua, Italy, the 12-year study of 3120 men and women 65 and older found that despite common belief that higher levels of LDL cholesterol has been considered unhealthy, just the opposite is true for the elderly.
The female study participants who had higher levels of LDL cholesterol saw a decrease in mortality rate and both men and women reduced their risk of a fatal heart failure with greater elevations in LDL cholesterol.
Bucking conventional wisdom promoted by most health experts, Dr. Tikhonoff and her colleagues concluded that this study will undoubtedly "add to the uncertainty of the role of elevated levels of LDL cholesterol as a risk factor for mortality in old people."
Why is there "uncertainty" about the findings of this study, Dr. Tikhonoff? I think they are crystal clear. Everything we have been told about how "bad" LDL cholesterol is hazardous to our health has been yet another scaremongering tactic from our government and those entrusted with providing us with information about our health. Just as the low-fat diet has been found to be a big fat lie in recent studies, so too is this idea about higher levels of LDL cholesterol being bad for our health.
The study was published in the December 2005 issue of the Journal of the American Geriatric Society.
The risk of a fatal heart attack and death from high-LDL cholesterol, according to the study, "was curvilinear ... decreasing nonlinearly with LDL cholesterol."
Tikhonoff noted study participants who chose not to take cholesterol-lowering medications such as statin drugs were less likely to develop a cardiovascular condition which could lead to death.
All of this seemingly contradicts all of the messages we are bombarded with to lower our cholesterol levels without any regard for why this is important. Eating a healthy low-carb diet and exercise will naturally stabilize your total cholesterol levels and will even raise your HDL "good" cholesterol levels dramatically in some cases.
The unnecessary and frankly irrelevant concerns over low-carb raising your cholesterol should be put to rest now with studies like this one proving yet again that the bruhaha about cholesterol is much ado about nothing.
What are the pharmaceutical companies gonna do with the undeniable truth from this study that LDL levels that get TOO LOW can be deadly? Will they now make a pill to help RAISE LDL? Hmmmm? Don't ever forget that cholesterol medications are all about the money and NOT about health. Always have been, always will be.
Will people ever wake up to the undeniable FACTS staring them right in the face? We can only hope!
This recent study found that the lower levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in people aged 65 and older is leading to greater risk of heart disease and death.
Led by Dr. Valerie Tikhonoff from the University of Padua, Italy, the 12-year study of 3120 men and women 65 and older found that despite common belief that higher levels of LDL cholesterol has been considered unhealthy, just the opposite is true for the elderly.
The female study participants who had higher levels of LDL cholesterol saw a decrease in mortality rate and both men and women reduced their risk of a fatal heart failure with greater elevations in LDL cholesterol.
Bucking conventional wisdom promoted by most health experts, Dr. Tikhonoff and her colleagues concluded that this study will undoubtedly "add to the uncertainty of the role of elevated levels of LDL cholesterol as a risk factor for mortality in old people."
Why is there "uncertainty" about the findings of this study, Dr. Tikhonoff? I think they are crystal clear. Everything we have been told about how "bad" LDL cholesterol is hazardous to our health has been yet another scaremongering tactic from our government and those entrusted with providing us with information about our health. Just as the low-fat diet has been found to be a big fat lie in recent studies, so too is this idea about higher levels of LDL cholesterol being bad for our health.
The study was published in the December 2005 issue of the Journal of the American Geriatric Society.
The risk of a fatal heart attack and death from high-LDL cholesterol, according to the study, "was curvilinear ... decreasing nonlinearly with LDL cholesterol."
Tikhonoff noted study participants who chose not to take cholesterol-lowering medications such as statin drugs were less likely to develop a cardiovascular condition which could lead to death.
All of this seemingly contradicts all of the messages we are bombarded with to lower our cholesterol levels without any regard for why this is important. Eating a healthy low-carb diet and exercise will naturally stabilize your total cholesterol levels and will even raise your HDL "good" cholesterol levels dramatically in some cases.
The unnecessary and frankly irrelevant concerns over low-carb raising your cholesterol should be put to rest now with studies like this one proving yet again that the bruhaha about cholesterol is much ado about nothing.
What are the pharmaceutical companies gonna do with the undeniable truth from this study that LDL levels that get TOO LOW can be deadly? Will they now make a pill to help RAISE LDL? Hmmmm? Don't ever forget that cholesterol medications are all about the money and NOT about health. Always have been, always will be.
Will people ever wake up to the undeniable FACTS staring them right in the face? We can only hope!
posted by Jimmy Moore at
2/22/2006 07:08:00 PM
4 Comments:
Another classic Jimmy! You are right-on with this article: there is a enormous collection of scientific studies as well as clinical evidence conclusively proving that the entire cholesterol hyperbole is total nonsense. I recently read several studies that, especially in the elderly - elderly women in particular - high lower density lipoprotein is a very good thing and should be considered completely normal.
As you recently - and completely correctly - observed, high cholesterol in general is not a "bad" thing at all, in fact, those with the lowest cholesterol have been shown to live the shortest lives. Only Big Pharma wants us to believe that high cholesterol is bad. In reality, it is all about the all-important ratio's between LDL, HDL and especially triglycerides that is of significance.
Great post!
Hmm...my total cholesterol is 166 and on low carb and with excercise, my HDL skyrocketed (up 29 points to 74) and my LDL went down 14 points to 84. I'm really happy with those numbers.
The next step the low carb community has to do is to prove the link between high insulin levels and CVD.
The Low Carb community spends, so much time defending fat, we really need to show (as well) how a high carb diet is killing us and our loved ones!
If that was proved conclusively (insulin CVD link) then Low Carb diets will be adopted by everyone!
That link already has been established. Over the long-term, repeatedly high elevations in blood glucose and exaggerated insulin responses are an outstanding way to develop disturbances in blood sugar metabolism, such as Type 2 diabetes, as well as CVE's. Although far from complete, see for example these references:
Hertzler SR, Kim Y. Glycemic and insulinemic responses to energy bars of differing macronutrient composition in healthy adults. Medical Science Monitor, 2003; 9 (2): CR84-90.
Coulston AM, et al. Deleterious metabolic effects of high-carbohydrate, sucrose-containing diets in patients with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. American Journal of Medicine, 1987 Feb; 82 (2): 213-20.
Garg A, et al. Effects of varying carbohydrate content of diet in patients with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. Journal of the American Medical Association, 1994; 271: 1421-1428
Brehm BJ, et al., A Randomized Trial Comparing a Very Low Carbohydrate Diet and a Calorie-Restricted Low Fat Diet on Body Weight and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Healthy Women. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2003; 88 (4): 1617-1623.
Layman DK, et al. A Reduced Ratio of Dietary Carbohydrate to Protein Improves Body Composition and Blood Lipid Profiles During Weight Loss in Adult Women. The Journal of Nutrition, 2003; 133 (2): 411-417.
Jeppesen J, et al. Effects of low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets on risk factors for ischemic heart disease in postmenopausal women. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1997; 65 : 1027-1033.
Vesti-Nielsen J, et al. Lasting improvement of hyperglycaemia and bodyweight: low-carbohydrate diet in type 2 diabetes--a brief report. Upsala Journal of Medical Sciences, 2005; 110 (1): 69-73.
These studies show, without any doubt, that high-glycemic load diets (i.e. the "healthy diet") have been shown to increase the risk of heart disease,(Liu S), breast cancer,(Higginbotham S) diabetes,(Salmeron J)(Salmeron J) pancreatic cancer,(Michaud DS) even neural tube birth defects!(Shaw GM)
Studies have repeatedly shown that reducing the dietary glycemic load of both diabetics and non-diabetics consistently produces significant improvements in various measures of glycemic control, such as fasting and daylong blood glucose levels, insulin sensitivity and glycated hemoglobin levels.
Furthermore and moreover, it is a well-established scientific fact that high-glycemic foods are associated with decreased satiety, increased food intake, and increased weight gain.
How much more proof do the low-fatties need?
The answer is that there will never be enough proof. No matter how many more studies will be conducted, and what is already known proven again and again, they will simply follow the rules of debunkery and keep yelling that there is no proof: "don't bother me with the facts, my mind is made up".
Also, as you most likely also have been observing the past weeks, they will resort to vitriolic personal attacks, completely in accordance with another rule from the Handbook Of Debunkery: "if you cannot attack the data, attack the messenger. It is easier."
Isn't this precisely what we have been seeing lately?
The only weapon the truth has is to keep showing them wrong, time and time and time again. Hopefully one day somebody in the media will smell the nutritional Watergate and start publishing about it, big time. It is my hope that eventually the population in general will get educated sufficiently in terms of proper nutrition to make their own informed and wise decisions.
To quote the famous Nobel Laureate Max Planck: "Progress in science does not come from discovery and truth. It comes from its opponents dying off."
Sad, but very, very true.
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