Cholesterol is Not a Villain
By Dr. Jim Harris

Cholesterol, which is primarily produced in the liver, is not the villain it has been made out to be.  It is an essential part of life.  Cholesterol is required to give rigidity to cell walls and to maintain the strength of blood vessel walls.  It is used for bile production, brain function, fat metabolism and for nerve impulse propagation.  Cholesterol is the basic building block for steroid hormones such as DHEA, testosterone, progesterone and estrogen.  It is also an important constituent of seminal fluid and vaginal secretions.

Since cholesterol is such an important element of human life, the body produces it with precision, according to the individual body’s particular requirements.  On average we require 2000 mg of cholesterol per day.  Of the 2000 mg we ingest, on average, about 300 to 500 mg comes from our diet from meats, eggs, seafood and dairy products.

Control mechanisms in the body keep cholesterol at an optimum level.  If dietary cholesterol is increased, then the liver produces less cholesterol.  If dietary cholesterol is decreased, the liver produces more.  Therefore, the cholesterol level in the blood is always in a state of homeostasis or balance with the needs of the body.  If there is excess cholesterol present, the excess is simply excreted in the bile to maintain the proper level or balance. 

Therefore, changing the diet to reduce natural cholesterol levels is only marginally helpful.  There is typically and initial change of 5 to 10%.  Then, once the body recognizes the dietary change, the previous level of cholesterol is once again established.  A small portion of the population will have a cholesterol level of 350 or higher due to a genetic disorder in their metabolism.  Also, man-made transfats are not processed in the same way as natural dietary cholesterol and will upset our body’s natural balance.

The numbers presently being used for total cholesterol are:
No Risk-less than 150             
Low Risk-150 to 200                                                                                                                                 
Medium Risk-200 to 250                                                                                                                           
High Risk-above 250

There are many professional researchers today who challenge these as purely arbitrary numbers.  Dr. Uffe Ravnskov, a cholesterol researcher, challenges the risk associated with the number 200, stating that this level was invented with no data to back it up.  He further remarks that to take a cholesterol level of 200 and imply that below that number is “health” and above that number is “loss of health” is nothing short of speculation.
From what we commonly hear and understand, we assume that people who have heart attacks must have high cholesterol levels in their blood.  One of the paramount heart studies in America, the Framingham Heart Study, showed almost half of the people within the study who suffered heart attacks had low cholesterol levels.  The study indicated that after age 47 it did not matter if cholesterol was high or low, as an equal number of both high and low cholesterol individuals died from heart attacks.

Other studies show that high cholesterol in women is not a risk factor and in fact indicate it is more dangerous for women to have low cholesterol than high cholesterol.  In Stockholm, Sweden men with low cholesterol died from heart disease just as often as men with high cholesterol.

It appears that a high cholesterol level is not a problem on its own but rather is an indicator for some other disorder in the body.  In my opinion, the related disorders are nutrition based, stemming from specific nutrition deficiencies.  The American Mennonite population eats a diet high in dairy products, eggs and red meat but have blood cholesterol levels lower than most other Americans.  This may be due to the fact that they grow their own vegetables in an organic fashion and eat free range eggs and beef from pasture fed cattle.  Are they getting the nutrients the rest of America is not?

The maxim we are what we eat is a powerfully true statement.  Perhaps an equally powerful question would be:  Can we get the required nutrition from the food available to us in America?  We know we have depleted soils soaked with pesticides, cows injected full of hormones, steroids and antibiotics, disease riddled chickens, grocery store shelves full of man-made chemicals and poor overall health as a nation.  It may be time to ask these questions and listen to the emerging answers.  It is time to begin demanding more healthful, real food from all sources.  Let’s choose our food sources from where nature intended and begin to know better health!

Dr. Harris can be reached at 760-969-5063