Elevated cholesterol levels are defined by members of the mainstream medical community as being any number over 200 mg/dl. High cholesterol levels would be any number over 240 mg/dl.
In the United States, we have been brainwashed into believing elevated cholesterol levels are harmful to your health. But consider the benefits cholesterol provides:
Cholesterol is essential to life. Every cell in your body requires cholesterol to maintain cell wall integrity.
Cholesterol is also the starting material from which your body makes vitamin D, hormones and bile acids for digestion.
Cholesterol helps the body fight infections and indeed they may be its most important benefit. Current research has suggested that heart disease and arteriosclerosis may be caused by infectious organisms, and higher levels of cholesterol protect the body from these inflammatory microorganisms.
Cholesterol acts as a protective substance against stroke and cancer.
Cholesterol is used by the body to repair injuries.
The brain uses cholesterol to build the synaptic connections between brain cells. In fact, the brain has special cells whose only job is to make cholesterol for the brain, since blood cholesterol can't get across the blood/brain barrier.
People with high cholesterol live the longest. There are multiple studies which support this fact. This is especially true for the elderly.
Cholesterol is so important to your body that it will make it if you don't eat enough. This self regulation makes it very difficult to use a low fat diet alone to lower your cholesterol. The less fat you eat, the more cholesterol your body makes.
Given all the evidence which confirms that cholesterol is protective and necessary for good health, I find it bizarre that the US government and most physicians work very hard to get people to lower their cholesterol levels as much as possible. The message that cholesterol is harmful is embedded deeply in the American psyche, and so the public doesn't question this misguided and harmful agenda.
But make no mistake, the drive to lower cholesterol is big business. Billions of dollars, thousands of jobs, and a multitude of agencies are involved in the overall goal of lowering American cholesterol levels. Huge amounts of money are spent to educate patients on the false benefits of a low fat, happinesslifetime.com low cholesterol diet. Big pharmaceutical companies spend millions on developing and marketing drugs that lower cholesterol, often with injurious or lethal consequences.
For example, statin drugs, which cause serious nerve, muscle and kidney damage, are being prescribed in mind boggling numbers. Between 2000 and 2005, the total prescriptions for statin drugs nearly doubled, bringing the 2005 yearly total to 174 million.
And there are individual perks for physicians who participate in this cholesterol lowering business too. Pharmaceutical companies pay doctors huge amounts of money to "educate" other doctors about the benefits of drugs. In a story from New York Magazine, one doctor speaks of the addictiveness of the $750 he was paid each time he briefly mentioned a particular drug to colleagues during a lunch break.
That's a great deal of money and effort being spent on a goal that in the end, is extremely harmful to the patient.
And here's the real kicker: the cholesterol cut off level of 200 mg/dl wasn't set by doctors using scientific trials and medical results. In classic American political style, it was chosen by three men trying to get funding from Congress to continue cholesterol trials at the NHLBI. (National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute). They reasoned that cutoff of 200 mg/dl would provide the largest population for use in future studies.
So, as you can see, elevated cholesterol levels are actually a cause for celebration, not a dire health problem about which you should worry. If you have elevated cholesterol levels, and have been targeted for statin drug use, please spend some time researching the alternative facts on cholesterol and statins. You may save your own life in the long run.
Ellen Davis researches nutrition and health issues and shares that information with other health conscious consumers. You can find more alternative information about nutrition and health at her website Healthy Eating Politics. The URL is healthy-eating-politics.com healthy-eating-politics.com
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