WELLNESS-Without the waxy compound called Cholesterol, the human body could not survive. It aids in building cell walls, producing certain hormones, as well as Vitamin D production and bone strength. It also helps to create bile salts that that help us digest fats.
There are new regulations that will be released by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee later in 2015 basically stating that the consumption of foods with dietary cholesterol is no longer a concern.
This is hardly news to most health care providers and people that have been paying attention. We have known for a long time that the body primarily produces Cholesterol in the liver, and that the amount of dietary cholesterol we consume has little to no affect on that level.
In 2012 the book The Great Cholesterol Myth was released covering this topic, but as far back as the 50’s, Ancel Keys conducted the little known starvation experiment, during which he inadvertently discovered that cholesterol in food or Dietary Cholesterol has little to no impact on our blood cholesterol levels.
On the other hand, foods that are high in saturated fats and trans fats cause an upsurge of cholesterol, especially LDL which may lead to heart disease and other diseases. Only 50% of people that have heart attacks have high cholesterol proving that high cholesterol and heart attacks do not always go together.
I tell my patients to avoid trans fats whenever possible. Things like vegetable shortenings, some margarines, crackers, cookies, snack foods, and other foods made with or fried in partially hydrogenated oils need to be avoided over small servings of foods rich in real fat.
While eating real fats be sure to use the daily recommended amount which is 20 to 35% of total calorie intake.
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In regards to our health and wellness goals, you can’t count on science alone to guide you. Instead, you need to be our own primary care provider. Listen to your body, which means paying attention.
If you are feeling great look back over the past few days at your behaviors and try to mimic those with both diet and exercise. Just because we have a new study stating that we don’t need to worry about cholesterol in our foods does not mean that we can run out and eat greasy fatty foods.
There are many other reasons besides cholesterol that we want to avoid eating garbage, including the fact that it makes us feel awful. Use moderation when it comes to all foods and when finding information on nutrition and wellness, sometimes we have to dig a little deeper than the surface.
(Christian Cristiano is an acupuncturist, TV host of Wellness for Realists and writes on wellness regularly for CityWatch. Christian can be reached at 323.935.3420 -d or 310.909.6956 -m).
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 16
Pub: Feb 24, 2015
