LDL/HDL – What you were never told.

I am not claiming to be an expert on cholesterol numbers.  I just know that there’s a lot more to the story than what we’ve been led to believe.

And I know the fear of cholesterol propaganda is one of the greatest contributors to all of our modern, chronic health issues.

Why is that?

As I explained in my blog Cholesterol, the Hero, not the Villain, this unwarranted fear triggered one of the unhealthiest changes in the western diet.

We abandoned the God given fats (butter, tallow, lard, chicken fat, duck fat, goose fat, coconut oil,…) that nourished us since the dawn of creation and replaced them with two pro-inflammatory foods:  vegetable oils (a.k.a. unnatural fats) and sugar.

These two villains worked their way into almost every packaged product on the grocery store shelf, fast food chain, and restaurant.

Cutting both from the diet will not only protect your heart, it will help protect you from every chronic disease.

Food manufacturers use vegetable oils for the same reasons other manufacturers use plastic:  it’s easy to chemically manipulate, the public can be taught to ignore the detrimental consequences of its use, and it’s CHEAP.

I will talk more about what seed oils are and their consequences in upcoming blogs.

This blog is meant to squelch any fears or concerns you may still have regarding cholesterol, in particular the bad “LDL.” 

So, you can freely enjoy the good foods that God gave us, without guilt or worry, knowing you are feeding yourself and your family optimally.

And so you can educate others and help put an end to this disaster.  The disaster being our nation’s health, and in particular that of our children and future generations.

Over the past century, butter consumption has dropped by over three fourths (from eighteen pounds per person to four pounds per person per year).[1],[2]

In 1990, heart disease was rare.[3]  By 1950, heart problems were killing more men than any other disease.[4]  By the beginning of the second millennium, heart disease was the number one cause of death among both men and women.[5]

Is your common sense speaking to you right now, like mine is me?

“Natural fat consumption down.  Manmade fat consumption up.  Heart disease WAY UP.”

Hmmm…  Something we’ve been told is wrong.

Could it be that cholesterol and saturated fats are essential for good health?

And that high LDL doesn’t lead to atherosclerosis (the buildup of plaque in the arteries)?

Let’s jump into our discussion on LDL and HDL and what we’ve been misled to believe versus what is true.

LDL and HDL refer to two types of lipoproteins.  Low-density lipoprotein and high-density lipoprotein.

We’ve been told time and again that LDL is “bad” and too much will damage your arteries and “HDL” is “good” and cleans your arteries.

This is inaccurate.  LDL, HDL, and other lipoproteins (chylomicrons, VDL, and IDL) each play important roles in assuring fat-soluble nutrients from your food get distributed correctly.[6]

The lipid cycle describes the process by which fats are packaged into particles that then travel through your bloodstream to be delivered to various tissues that either use them immediately or store them for later use.[7]

After your food is broken down by enzymes in the intestine, the fat and most other nutrients get absorbed into the intestinal cells.  Here, the fat and fat-soluble nutrients are prepared to be circulated through the bloodstream.  This process results in little blobs of fat wrapped in protein called lipoproteins.[8]

None of the fat and cholesterol you eat will get into your arteries without first being wrapped inside this special layer of protein.[9]

Lipoproteins have two essential parts:

  • An outer layer coating (made of proteins called apoproteins)
  • Soft insides (made of fat, called the lipid core).

The apoproteins serve like address labels on a parcel, directing the lipoprotein to deliver its goods to the tissues that need them the most.[10]

Because the fats and cholesterol are suspended inside this protein coating while traveling through your bloodstream, they can’t clog your arteries.[11]

In addition to the lipoproteins manufactured in your intestines, you have two additional sources of lipoproteins.

  1. Liver. The liver is like a transfer station. It sorts through the incoming lipoproteins to separate the good fat from the bad.  When it has collected enough good fats, it makes its own lipoproteins (called VLDL or very low density proteins), with a new parcel label and sends them back out into the bloodstream.
  2. Periphery (skin, brain and other organs).

Though the three sources produce different types of lipoproteins, they all have the same design: a blob of fat wrapped in protein.  When all is functioning as God designed, they all cycle through the bloodstream, delivering their enclosed parcels as directed.[12],[13]

[See footnote[14] below for a more detailed explanation of the Lipid Cycle.]

When your diet disrupts your lipid cycle and fats don’t get where they need to go, your cholesterol numbers can go out of whack.  Your LDL can go up and your HDL down.

Neither is good.  They are warning signs that damaged lipoproteins may be damaging your blood vessels.[15]

The key concept to grasp here is the reason your numbers go out of whack is because you’re eating foods that disrupt the lipid cycle, NOT because you’re eating a too much saturated fat or cholesterol. 

And what are the foods that disrupt the lipid cycle?

You should know by now.  I’ve been harping on them as villains throughout my blogs.

Yes.  That’s right.  It’s the vegetable oils and sugar.

These foods disrupt the lipid cycle by damaging the highly fragile surfaces of the lipoproteins, the apoproteins, which serve to help direct the particles during their journey through the lipid cycle.[16]

How do they damage the apoproteins?

  1. Vegetable oils generate free radicals that char the lipoprotein’s surface, causing it to be oxidatively modified and unrecognizable by the LDL receptor.
  2. Sugar adheres to other substances through a process called glycation. Over time this stiffens cell membranes, leading to prediabetes and consistently elevated blood sugar levels.  High blood sugar levels create the opportunity for sugar to gum up the protein label on your lipoprotein particles, again rendering the label unrecognizable by its appropriate receptor.

A more important test than cholesterol for determining the health of your arteries is your fasting blood sugar level. 

 According to Catherine Shaahan, M.D., author of Deep Nutrition, if it’s 89 or higher, you may have prediabetes, meaning your cell membranes have become too rigid to take in glucose as fast as they normally can.[17]

What makes a cell membranes stiff?

  • The free radical damage instigated by vegetable oils
  • Nutrient deficiency (which comes from a nutrient deplete diet and/or failure to metabolize the nutrients)
  • Sugar

Other tests that, Dr. Shanahan suggest are:

  • Blood pressure
  • Liver enzymes
  • Lastly would be a cholesterol test.

If your LDL number is ‘high,’ say 160, that may or may not be a problem.  Likewise, if your LDL is ‘low,’ say, that doesn’t necessarily indicate you’re in good metabolic shape,

What’s important is the size of your LDL particles.  That’s the best determinant for doctors to assess how well your LDL particles function.  Bigger LDL particles are healthier LDL particles.

Why is this?

The healthy LDL particles can deliver the fat they’re carrying efficiently.  They enter the bloodstream, do a delivery job or two which reduces their size.  They’re then easily recognized by the liver, which plucks the little particles out of circulation and refills them with more cholesterol and lipid supplies, making them big again.[18]

However, problems arise when the liver can’t recognize the smaller, partially empty lipoprotein because the particle’s protein coat (which, as we discussed earlier, displays vital information identifying the particle and its cargo) has been damaged by oxidation and/or glycation.[19]

These smaller particles are like orphans forced to wonder through the bloodstream looking for a home until the same oxidative process that damaged their outside coating forces them to precipitate out of circulation, adhere to the delicate surfaces of your arterial walls, and form plaque formation.[20]

A regular cholesterol test cannot tell you how many of these little, wayward particles are floating around destined to cause damage.  If you are concerned about this and want to be able to test LDL and HDL particle size, you will need an advanced lipid panel.[21]

To reiterate, an overabundance of smaller size LDL particles can indicate a problem with your lipid cycle, most likely resulting from an oxidized and/or glycated protein coat, not from cholesterol.

The best anecdote to worrying about impaired arterial health is to simply cut all vegetable oils out of your diet and reduce sugar to a minimum.

Note.  To cut all vegetable oils, you need to start by reading the ingredient list on anything you buy with a label, cut out fast food restaurants, and ask about their ingredients at any other restaurants you may go to.

The vegetable oils I am referring to are canola, corn, cottonseed, safflower, soy, sunflower, rice bran, and grapeseed.[22]

They’re highly fragile and in many cases are repurposed industrial waste.  More on that in later blog.

Foods loaded with these pro-inflammatory fats include:

  • Margarine
  • Salad dressing and other condiments
  • Rice milk
  • Soy milk, soy cheese, soy based “meat” products
  • Breakfast cereals
  • Granola
  • Crackers and chips
  • French fries
  • Soft breads, buns, doughnuts, and most any store-bought baked goods[23]

Eating vegetable oil and sugar doesn’t just mess up you arteries.  The cascade of free radicals can interfere with nearly everything a cell might need to do, leading to almost any disease you can name. [24],[25]

I am going to address this even more in future articles – understanding the devastating impact vegetable oils and sugars are having on us and our youngsters and what we can do to help.

For now, here’s your takeaway:

Although we’re told that high LDL will lead to atherosclerosis (the buildup of plaque in the arteries), you now know that’s not true.  And you don’t need to worry so much about your numbers.

Please share this blog with others.  Everyone needs to know this.

And if there’s something I didn’t get quite right or some essential piece of information I missed, please leave a message in the comments.

Together we can get to the truth.  And may knowing the truth help us make good choices to move us, our families, and the rest of mankind toward optimal health.

Thank you,
Karen

“and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.”  John 8:32

[1] Myths and Truths about Beef, Fallon s, Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, Spring 2000

[2] Trans Fatty Acids in the Food Supply: A Comprehensive Report Survey Sixty Years of Research, Second Edition, Enig Mary G Enig Associates, Silver Spring, MD, 1995 pp 4-8

[3] Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics, 2003 update. American Heart Association

[4] The Rise and Fall of Ischemic Heart Disease, Stallones RA, Scientific America, Nov 1980, 243(5):53-9

[5] Sex matters: Secular and geographical Trends in Sex Differences in Coronary Heart Disease Mortality, Lawlor DA, BMJ, September 28, 2001, 323:541 -545

[6] Shanahan C and L Deep Nutrition.   Flatiron Books 2016, pp121-162

[7] Ibid

[8] Ibid

[9] Ibid

[10] Ibid

[11] Ibid

[12] Ibid

[13] A New Role  for Apolipoprotein D: Modulation Transport of Polyunsaturated phospholipid Molecular Species in Synaptic Plasma Membranes, J Neurochem, January 2002, 80(2):255-61  (276)

[14] After a lipoprotein enters the bloodstream, it travels for several hours, completing many circuits, depositing its fatty nutrients into the tissues that need them most.  Hours after a meal, the amount of fat in circulation drops as lipoproteins either exit circulation or give up their fat and shrink (gradually decreasing in size and becoming denser).  Eventually the liver picks them up the shrunken, high-density remnants and sorts through the contents to recycle anything useful while discarding any waste.  Unwanted or damaged fat leave the body through the liver’s bile systemThe liver is like a transfer station.  It sorts through the incoming lipoproteins to separate the good fat from the bad.  When it has collected enough good fats, it makes its own lipoproteins (called VLDL or very low density proteins), with a new parcel label and sends them back out into the bloodstream.  These particles go through another arm of the cycle, following the same procedure, delivering the cargo in piecemeal or all at once to its final destination.  The particles that deliver cargo piecemeal eventually get small enough to be picked up by the liver again, where they’re disassembled and their fats either discarded or recycled once more.   Shanahan C and L Deep Nutrition.   Flatiron Books 2016, pp 148-149

[15] Shanahan C and L Deep Nutrition.   Flatiron Books 2016, pp121-162

[16] Ibid

[17] Ibid

[18] Ibid

[19] Ibid

[20] Ibid

[21] If you decide to have this test done and need help interpreting it, you can sign up with a consultation with Dr. Shanahan or join a group education class at DrCate.com.

[22] Shanahan C and L Deep Nutrition.   Flatiron Books 2016, pp121-162

[23] Ibid

[24] Oxidation-reduction Controls Fetal Hypoplastic Lung Growth, Fisher JC, J surg Res, August 2002, 106(2):287-91

[25]  Intake of High Levels of Vitamin A and Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids During Different Development Periods Modifies the Expression of Morphogenesis Genes in European Sea Bass (Dicentrarchus labrax), Villeneuve LA, British Journal Nutrition, April 2006, 95(4):677-87.

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2 thoughts on “LDL/HDL – What you were never told.”

  1. Thanks, Karen. My Dr is such an advocate for not just going by test results numbers. My cholesterol is high, but she said I was fine due to my diet, exercise and weight. She ordered a ct scan of my arteries to confirm they were just fine. She said absolutely no meds needed. I told her I eat the things that are good and it’s still high, and she said that’s good. This Is just a regular dr. I was impressed. I put my new email above.

    1. Thank you for sharing this, Susan. I am glad your doctor was willing to do alternative testing. And that your arteries are fine.

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Enjoy this wintertime essential. 

When cold season hits, what’s better to have on hand than homemade, nutrient dense bone broth?

Get your free guide along with monthly REAL food tips & inspiration right to your inbox.
 
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