TESTIMONY OF THE DAY

HAQ and 7 Day Keto Cleanse Client Update!

FACTS ON CHOLESTEROL

My grandpa Vince survived his first heart attack at age 32, but with the diet that his doctor recommended it is no wonder his heart never healed.  He eventually required heart surgery at age 45, then another one at age 52. At that point, the doctors gave him 5 years to live; he made it 9 and died at age 61 on Thanksgiving morning. He was given nutrition advice from his doctor to never eat eggs, butter, or saturated fat. He was living off of fake butter substitutes and popcorn. His doctor would be shocked if I fed him keto food!

Cholesterol is not the bad guy that we have vilified; it is vital for every cell in your body. You cannot live one day without it! It does not damage arteries, it repairs arteries![8] I like to refer to cholesterol as the fire fighters in our body. They help stop the inflammation that is occurring. When you kill the firefighters (cholesterol), sure your cholesterol numbers will go down, but did the inflammation (fire) go away? No, it didn’t.

Cholesterol is so important to the human body that nature has devised a backup plan in the event your diet falls short. When that happens, your liver steps in to make cholesterol to give your body a baseline level. The high levels of insulin that are released in a low-fat, high-carb diet also trigger the body to tap off leftover blood sugar into the liver to make cholesterol and triglycerides which are used for energy and fat storage.

In its natural, unstressed state your liver makes 75% of the cholesterol your body needs. The rest you have to eat, which is my favorite food group: butter, meat, whole-fat dairy products, shellfish and eggs.

If you deprive yourself of cholesterol, your liver overproduces cholesterol to make up the difference and stocks up. This overdrive state can’t shut off until you start eating cholesterol again. So, a low-cholesterol, high-carbohydrate diet can actually lead to heart disease!

Most importantly, the biggest contributor to heart disease risk is inflammation. A well formulated keto-adapted diet is very low in inflammation. Sugar and carbs are the big culprits when it comes to increased inflammation. Coronary Artery Disease occurs when an LDL particle (usually a small dense one) gets lodged in a lesion (caused by inflammation) in the artery wall. It then releases its cholesterol into the artery wall which starts the formation of plaque. So if you have very low inflammation and no arterial lesions for the LDL to get stuck in, your cholesterol numbers aren’t really relevant.

“We’ve long known that atherosclerosis is an inflammatory disease. In the absence of inflammation or injury to the endothelial cell, the cholesterol would never go through the arterial wall and it would never stay there. – Dr. Dwight Lundell”[59]

Well formulated keto-adapted diets:
1. Reduce body fat much more than low-fat diets, even though the low-carb groups are allowed to eat until fullness [10, 11].

2. Lower blood sugar and improve symptoms of diabetes [12].

3. Increase HDL (the good) cholesterol much more than low-fat diets [13].

4. Change the pattern of LDL (the “bad”) cholesterol from small, dense LDL (very bad) to Large LDL [114, 15].

5. Cause a greater reduction in blood pressure [16, 17].

6. Lower blood triglycerides much more [18].

They improve ALL biomarkers of health MORE than the low-fat diet still recommended by the authorities.

If you want to get started on a well-formulated keto-adapted diet, take the planning out and get my 30 day meal plans which include a very detailed grocery list. Click HERE to get started on your path to healing. 

Cholesterol On the Ketogenic Diet

Are you interested in eating the ketogenic diet but are concerned about your cholesterol? Did your doctor warn you about cholesterol going up if you eat too many eggs? What is the true cause of heart disease and what does high cholesterol mean?

In this YouTube video Craig discusses all things cholesterol related.