One Drug You Just Shouldn’t Take

For access to my article series on Fat and Cholesterol including how eating more fat can help you lose weight – click here.

We’re still on the topic of fat here.

What I’ve hoped to impress upon you is that fat isn’t a bad thing to have in your diet.

Provided you are eating natural fat derived from healthy animals (animals that aren’t raised in a feedlot and induced with antibiotics and hormones) you can safely eat fat.

Now, when I say that, you also need to understand the rest of your diet should be healthy as well.

That means eating fresh fruit and vegetables and avoiding allergenic foods like wheat, dairy, soy etc.

It also means avoiding anything that is labeled “low-fat,” or “fat-free,” and has any amount of partially hydrogenated oils in it. In terms of “silent killers, ” those are far more dangerous than any amount of fat that would come from bacon, or grass-fed beef.

And that’s how I want to tie in one last piece of information you’ve got to know.

I want to talk about cholesterol.

Cholesterol is the name of my new border collie, labrador mix.

Haha, no not really.

Cholesterol is one of the most misrepresented aspects of human health and really gets the short end of the stick.

As I mentioned in the last email, it’s believed that the association of cholesterol levels and the consumption of saturated fat are what contributes to coronary heart disease.

Unfortunately, that’s just not true.

There are a number of misconceptions about cholesterol, and the biggest one is that it’s bad for your health.

I’d like to take a moment and set the record straight.

Talking Honestly About Cholesterol

First things first.

Cholesterol is absolutely vital for your health. Without cholesterol, you wouldn’t be alive.

Cholesterol is essential for some of the following life-giving purposes:

• Builds cell walls
• Helps produce hormones
• Needed to help produce vitamin D
• Forms the bile acids that help you digest fat

Senior research scientist Dr. Stephanie Seneff of MIT has concluded that cholesterol is fundamentally important for good health. As she says:

“I always have believed that cholesterol is a very, very important nutrient…Cholesterol is to animals as chlorophyll is to plants. It basically gives us mobility – the ability to move and it gives the nervous system the ability to think.”

Part of the reason many researchers believe cholesterol is bad is because they believe that since the body makes its own cholesterol (80-90% of your cholesterol is made in your liver), added cholesterol from your diet is only going to hurt you.

Yet, it has been found the opposite is true.

As Dr. Seneff notes:

“I get very annoyed when I hear this, and we hear it a lot—that your body can make all the cholesterol it needs and therefore you don’t need it in your diet.”

“… [I]t’s true that your body can synthesize cholesterol, [and that] it’s not an essential nutrient like some other things are. However, foods that contain cholesterol contain a lot of other things that are very important to you; that are critical nutrients. Cholesterol is associated for example with choline, and all the fat-soluble vitamins – vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin K, zinc, iron.”

In fact, years of research performed by Weston A. Price showed that many cultures who have high dietary cholesterol coming from animal and plant sources have incredibly low rates of coronary heart disease. 

If you’ve been paying attention to what most doctors have been saying, that definitely goes against everything they claim to be true.

So what gives?

Here’s the thing.

The idea that cholesterol causes heart disease has produced two different by products, both going hand-in-hand.

It’s produced a ton of foods that are “low-fat” or “low-cholesterol” and it’s produced drugs that are meant to regulate cholesterol.

Unfortunately, neither of these have actually been proven to benefit your health…and, as you might have guessed, there’s a growing body of research to prove they’re both pretty darn bad for you.

Do Trans-Fats, Statins, Help With Heart Disease?

First, let’s talk about trans fats.

Trans fats were invented in the middle of the 20th century when processed foods were coming into popularity.

Partially hydrogenated oils (also known as trans fats) were created to help extend the shelf life of certain foods. And, not only were these oils included to make food last longer, they also made the food taste better.

Not many donuts have ever tasted horrible.

As the research began to come out that dietary cholesterol and saturated fats were bad for your health, companies began to use more sugar and trans fats to make tastier, “low fat” foods.

Dr. Fred Kummerow was one of the first to do research on trans fats and heart disease.

Even as early as the 1960s, he was issuing statements that disproved the relationship between cholesterol and heart disease. He found instead that trans fats were what led to coronary heart disease.

As he wrote recently, “Trans fat leads to the reduction of prostacyclin that is needed to prevent blood clots in the arteries. A blood clot in any of the coronary arteries can result in sudden death.”

Even though Kummerow knew this, it didn’t mean his discoveries made it into mainstream science.

What began to emerge instead was the use of statins to help regulate cholesterol. The science was bad, so scientists believed they needed to create a drug to fight cholesterol.

Bad move.

It’s long been believed that statins can help with poor heart health.

Unfortunately, statins are like a putting a band-aid over a splinter.  Doesn’t really help the problem, but may make it look better.

Statins have helped a very few reduce their risk for poor heart health. There does appear to be some benefit in men that have already had a heart attack, but to prevent a first heart attack, the evidence just isn’t there, because as you now know, cholesterol isn’t the problem, trans fats are.

On the other hand, statins have numerous health related risks associated with them.

All you’ve got to do is pick up a bottle of Zocor or Lipitor and read the list of side-effects and you’ll ask yourself, "how is it even worth taking a drug like this?"

Here’s a list of side effects associated with Statins:

• Headache
• Difficulty sleeping
• Flushing of the skin
• Muscle aches, tenderness, or weakness (myalgia)
• Drowsiness
• Dizziness
• Nausea or vomiting
• Abdominal cramping or pain
• Bloating or gas
• Diarrhea
• Constipation
• Rash
• Myositis
• Elevated levels of CPK
• Rhabdomyolysis
• Liver problems
• Confusion

And the list could go on depending on the drug you’re talking about.

In reality, the use of statins could be eliminated entirely if your diet was on-point and included adequate amounts of healthy fats and no processed foods.

And that’s what I believe you should be doing.

Your body doesn’t need a drug to reduce cholesterol levels any more than you need a nail in the back of your foot to enhance your balance.

What you need is the right kind of fats, more of them, and to reduce your intake of processed foods.

It’s really that simple.

If a doctor is telling you to take statins, are they telling you saturated fat is bad too?

I’d be willing to bet they are.

Take it from me, someone who loves bacon, when they come from the right sources – animal fats and cholesterol are good. No matter how the food and drug Industries try to spin it, fake fats are always bad.

Enjoy life. Enjoy good fats.

For access to my article series on Fat and Cholesterol including how eating more fat can help you lose weight – click here.

Talk soon,     

Dr. Wiggy
www.HealthAsItOughtToBe.com