Are You Making These 7 Mistakes About Fat and Cholesterol

Are You Making These

7 Mistakes About Fat and Cholesterol?

2 www.rockwellnutrition.com

Of all the confusing, contradictory, and flat out bad advice out there about nutrition, far and away the one the issue that can work me up into a lather faster than you can say Krispy Kreme is what the dietary dictocrats tell us about fat and cholesterol.

Im going to put it bluntly: 99% of what youve read about or heard on the nightly news about the dangers of fat and cholesterol is flat our wrong.

And the real irony is that the so-called experts are actually telling us to avoid the right kind of fats and eat the wrong kind of fats instead.

Talk about insane

So today, Im going to blow the cover off this controversial topic, and tell you the real truth about fat and cholesterolthe stuff you arent hearing about on the nightly news.

What youre about to learn is going to shock you.

Mistake #1: A low-fat diet is key to losing weight.

It isnt!

The Womens Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial was very expensive, costing several hundreds of millions of dollars. The study included around 49,000 respondents and spanned 8 years.

Fat was thought to cause heart disease, certain types of cancer, and obesity. It seemed obvious then that cutting out fat should result in lower risks for heart disease and cancer and should lead to weight loss.

Low-fat diet had no advantages over the usual diet.

But it didnt.

Instead, the study showed that a low-fat diet had no advan-tages over the usual diet. Participants who lessened their fat consumption weighed the same, on average, as the par-ticipants who didnt alter their diet. And they had pretty much the same risk for cancer and heart disease.[i]

Key Takeaway

Low-fat diets offer no health advantage whatsoever.[ii]

Mistake #2: Foods rich in cholesterol are bad for you.

Cholesterol isnt bad per se.


Theyre not.

First, lets clear up the misconception that cholesterol is bad for you. Cholesterol is essential for human health. We need it to make sex hormones, cell membranes, vitamin D (yes, our bodies can produce vitamin D using cholesterol), and digestive enzymes that help in breaking up fats.

Dietary cholesterol has virtually no significant effect on blood cholesterol.

Dr. Ron Rosedale, one of the leading experts in the science of aging, sums it up best: Theres no good and bad choles-terol. Cholesterol is cholesterol. [iii]

According to the Harvard School of Public Health:

Although it is still important to limit the amount of cho-lesterol you eat, especially if you have diabetes, for most

people dietary cholesterol isnt nearly the villain its been portrayed to be. The biggest influence on blood cholesterol level is the mix of fats and carbohydrates in your dietnot the amount of cholesterol you eat from food.[iv]

Key Takeaway

Its okay to eat cholesterol-rich foods such as eggs.[v] For the overwhelming majority of people, dietary cholesterol has virtually no significant effect on blood cholesterol.

Mistake #3: LDL cholesterol levels can predict heart attacks

They dont.

Its been drummed into our consciousness that bad LDL cholesterol levels in the blood can predict a persons risk of heart attack. At the same time, we were made to believe that higher levels of HDL cholesterol help in lowering heart attack risks.

However, in 2008, a study showed that lowering LDL levels doesnt always decrease the likelihood of heart attacks. An-other study, released in 2011, showed that increasing HDL cholesterol levels doesnt always lower the risk for heart attacks. And a number of studies have shown that over half the people hospitalized with coronary artery disease have perfectly normal cholesterol levels. [vi] [vii] [viii]

What gives?[ix]

Cholesterol, according to cardiologist Stephen Sinatra, MD, co-author of The Great Cholesterol Myth is like a firefighter on the scene of a fire. Its found at the scene of


the crime, says Dr. Sinatra, but its not the perpetrator.[1]

Key Takeaway

Cholesterol per se doesnt cause heart disease.

Mistake #4: Processed seed and vegetable oils are healthy.

Theyre not. At least not in the amounts we consume them in.

Joe Mercola, D.O. says, Of all the destructive foods avail-able to us, those made with heated vegetable oils are some of the worst. Make no mistake about it vegetable oil is not the health food that you were lead to believe it was.[x]

This doesnt mean that all vegetable oils are bad. The prob-lem is that were consuming too much of them. Omega-6 oils must be balanced with omega-3 oils in a 1:1 up to 3:1 ratio.[xi] The western diet typically contains a 16:1 ratio.[xii] Since omega-6s are pro-inflammatory and omega-3s are anti-inflammatory, this pattern of consumption sets us up for all kinds of health problems.

To fix this, we have two options: 1) reduce our omega-6 in-take and 2) add more omega-3s in our diet. You can help correct this pro-inflammatory imbalance by substitut-ing coconut oil, Malaysian palm oil, butter, ghee, or other healthy fats for some of your vegetable oils, and by eating omega-3 rich foods and supplementing with high quality fish oil.

Key Takeaway

Use coconut oil for cooking, eat omega-3 rich foods and supplement with fish oil or flaxseed oil.

Mistake #5: Saturated fat is bad for you.

The amount of fat matters very little, but the source of the fat mat-ters a great deal.

Its not.

For over four decades, weve been led to believe that sat-urated fats cause heart disease. However, new research suggests otherwise. Heres what WebMD says about sat-urated fat:

A recent review of 72 studies found no link between sat-urated fat and heart disease. The review also showed that


monounsaturated fats like those in olive oil, nuts, and avo-cados dont protect against heart disease.[xiii]

According to Nina Teicholz, There has never been solid evidence for the idea that these [saturated] fats cause dis-ease. We only believe this to be the case because nutrition policy has been derailed over the past half-century . . .[xiv]

Still, these studies arent the final word. Right now, not ev-eryone agrees that saturated fats are harmless, Elizabeth Klodas, MD writes for WebMD.

Key Takeaway

Its okay to eat butter, cheese, and meat. But because tox-ins, steroids, and other undesirable compounds are stored in the fat, its very important to get your animal products from healthy animals, such as grass-fed beef. The amount of fat matters very little, but the source of the fat matters a great deal.

Mistake #6: Margarine is better than butter.

Its definitely not!

Margarine and butter serve the same purpose in baking, cooking, and as spreads.

Butter has been demonized because it contains saturated fat (which we now know isnt really bad) and cholesterol (which the body needs).

Margarine, on the other hand, is a processed food product that contains processed vegetable oils and trans fat, both of which are bad for your health.[xv]

Key Takeaway

Use butter instead of margarine.

Butter has been demonized because it contains saturated fat.

Mistake #7: Low-fat, processed foods are better options.

Theyre not.

Fat tastes good. When food manufacturers removed fat from their products, they were faced with a big problem. No one is going to buy food that tastes like cardboard. To make low-fat food palatable, food manufacturers had to load them up with sugar. Voila! They had tasty products to sell.

The problem is that sugar is a way bigger risk to our health


than fat ever was.

To make low-fat food palatable, food manufacturers had to load them up with sugar.

Key Takeaway

Low-fat doesnt necessarily mean healthy.

Conclusion

The big takeaways for many people with cardiovascular disease possibilities are to lose weight (if overweight), get daily exercise and watch salt, sugar, refined carbs and ex-cessive alcohol in the diet and work on stress or anger man-agement as they all play a role in the progression of these diseases.

References:

[1] Dr. Sinatra does recommend testing cholesterol parti-cle size. Particle size is extraordinarily important, because research shows that small dense LDL cholesterol is inflam-matory and toxic to blood vessels.

[i] Low-fat Diet Not a Cure-All, Harvard School of Public Health, Retrieved December 8, 2014.

[ii] Low-Carb Diets More Effective than Low-Fat Ones For Losing Weight, Fighting Heart Disease, Kukil Bora, Inter-national Business Times, Published September 2, 2014, Retrieved December 8, 2014.

[iii] Exposing the Cholesterol Myth, YouTube, Retrieved December 8, 2014.

[iv] Fats and Cholesterol, Harvard School of Public Health, Retrieved December 8, 2014.

[v] Eggs: Healthy or Not?, John Berardi, Ph.D., Huffington Post, Published July 17, 2013, Retrieved December 8, 2014.

[vi] Lipid levels in patients hospitalized with coronary ar-tery disease: An analysis of 136,905 hospitalizations in Get With The Guidelines, Amit Sachdeva, MD, Christo-pher P. Cannon, MD, Prakash C. Deedwania, MD, Kenneth A. LaBresh, MD, Sidney C. Smith Jr, MD, David Dai, MS, Adrian Hernandez, MD, Gregg C. Fonarow, MD, American Heart Journal, Published May 9, 2008, Retrieved February 2, 2015.

[vii] Lack of Association Between Cholesterol and Cor-


onary Heart Disease Mortality and Morbidity and All-Cause Mortality in Persons Older Than 70 Years, Harlan M. Krumholz, MD; Teresa E. Seeman, PhD; Susan S. Mer-rill, PhD; Carlos F. Mendes de Leon, PhD; Viola Vaccarino, MD; David I. Silverman, MD; Reiko Tsukahara, MD; Adrian M. Ostfeld, MD; Lisa F. Berkman, PhD, The Journal of the American Medical Association, Published November 2, 1994, Retrieved February 2, 2015.

[viii] Serum Cholesterol Values in Patients Treated Surgi-cally for Atherosclerosis, H. Edward Garrett, MD; Evan C. Horning, PhD; Billy G. Creech, PhD; Michael De Bakey, MD, The Journal of the American Medical Association, Pub-lished August 31, 1964, Retrieved February 2, 2015.

[ix] Cholesterol Conundrum, Francie Diep, Scientific Amer-ican, Published October 12, 2011, Retrieved December 8, 2014.

[x] The Surprising Toxic Effects of Vegetable Oil, Dr. Joseph Mercola, Mercola.com, Published June 28, 2005, Retrieved December 11, 2014.

[xi] What Is The Omega 3 Omega 6 Ratio And Why Do We Need To Know?, Healthy Omega 3 Fish Oil, Retrieved Feb-ruary 5, 2015.

[xii] The importance of the ratio of omega-6/omega-3 es-sential fatty acids. Artemis Simopoulos, Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy, Published October 2002, Retrieved De-cember 11, 2014.

[xiii] Is Butter Back? The Truth About Saturated Fats, Amy Paturel, WebMD, Published July 16, 2014, Retrieved De-cember 15, 2014.

[xiv] The Questionable Link Between Saturated Fat and Heart Disease, Nina Teicholz, The Wallstreet Journal, Up-dated May 6, 2014, Retrieved December 15, 2014.

[xv] Butter VS Margarine Why I Trust Cows More than Chemists, Kris Gunnars, Authority Nutrition, Retrieved December 15, 2014.

For more information, please visit Rockwell Nutritions blog at

http://rnblog.rockwellnutrition.com/.

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Are You Making These 7 Mistakes About Fat and Cholesterol