LOW CHOLESTEROL EQUALS LOW IMMUNITY

                               Healthy Saturated Fats....especially if from animals raised on pasture

Part 3: Low Blood Cholesterol Compromises Immune Function  By Barry Groves

For references and more important info, see http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/immunity3.html

There is a substantial amount of evidence that relatively low cholesterol levels in apparently healthy individuals is associated with increased subsequent mortality from cancer. It is also associated with other, non-heart related deaths. A group at the Center for Clinical Pharmacology, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, tested whether the effectiveness of their immune systems differed in individuals with high and low levels of blood cholesterol.[i] The low cholesterol group's cholesterol averaged 3.9 mmol/L (151 mg/dL); the high cholesterol group averaged 6.8 mmol/L (261 mg/dL). The immune systems of the men in the low cholesterol group were significantly less effective than those of the high cholesterol group. This finding was not surprising as several studies have shown that cholesterol is necessary for the proper functioning of blood cells — macrophages and lymphocytes — that form part of our immune systems. For this reason low blood cholesterol undoubtedly adversely affects our bodies' ability to fight infection. This could well be another reason why infectious diseases are becoming more prevalent in our society.


Tuberculosis (TB), a disease thought to have been conquered decades ago, is returning. It has been noticed that low levels of cholesterol are common in patients suffering from TB. TB patients with low cholesterol also have higher death rates, particularly those cases with small (military) nodules. A hospital for respiratory diseases tested whether giving TB patients high-cholesterol meals would be effective in treating their condition.[ii] They split patients into two groups. One had meals containing 800 mg of cholesterol per day; the other had 250 mg of cholesterol per day. The trial was a success. By the second week, the numbers of TB bacteria in sputum was reduced 80% in the high-cholesterol group; it was only reduced by 9% in the low-cholesterol group. High-cholesterol diets now form part of the treatment for TB.


Infections and deaths in surgical patients
Low cholesterol is also linked to increased susceptibility to infection, including development of postoperative infection,[iii] and it predicts death and adverse outcomes in hospitalised patients.[iv] While some of this could be due to illness causing lower cholesterol, it may also be that low cholesterol contributes to illness; indeed, animal studies suggest lipoproteins may serve to protect against bacterial infection-induced death.[v]


It has been suggested in cases of critical surgical illness that a low cholesterol level is more likely to lead to the development of organ failure and death.


A study of patients undergoing surgery for gastrointestinal diseases at the Universita di L'Aquila in Italy, found that 'Hypocholesterolemia [low blood cholesterol] seems to represent a significant predictive factor of morbidity and mortality in critically ill patients.'[vi] Of the patients studied, 35.1% contracted a postoperative infection. The highest incidence of postoperative septic complications (72.7%) was encountered in patients with cholesterol levels below 2.73 mmol/L (105 mg/dl). The authors say 'The results of this study seem to indicate a significant relationship between preoperative hypocholesterolemia and the incidence of septic complications after surgery. Moreover, evaluation of blood cholesterol levels before major surgery might represent a predictive factor of septic risk in the postoperative period.'


Low cholesterol levels have also been associated clinically with the development of hospital infections. A study conducted at the Department of Surgery, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, set out to verify this. They found that lower levels of total cholesterol, and of LDL and HDL occurred early in the course of critical illness; this led to the development of a hospital infection; and with or without the infection, lower cholesterol was independently associated with a higher death rate.[vii] The authors conclude: 'Decreased serum cholesterol concentration is an independent predictor of mortality in critically ill surgical patients. Repletion of serum lipids is a feasible therapeutic approach for the management of critical illness.'


Many patients in hospitals have or acquire infections during or after major abdominal surgery. The Department of Surgery at the Catholic University, Rome, Italy, conducted a study to identify factors that influenced mortality in patients who are affected by such infections.[viii] The hospital records of patients who had had a variety of abdominal operations and who had acquired an infection such as peritonitis were reviewed. Checking deaths against a battery of blood measurements, the authors of the study found that low cholesterol levels and low protein levels were both 'strongly and independently associated with the outcome'.


Professor Uffe Ravnskov would not be at all surprised. He found that: 'There is much evidence that blood lipids play a key role in the immune defence system. Bacterial endotoxin and Staphylococcus aureus a-toxin bind rapidly to and become inactivated by low-density-lipoprotein (LDL).'[ix] (Staphylococcus aureus is what the 'SA' in MRSA stands for.) Ravnskov also pointed out that 'Total cholesterol is inversely associated with mortality caused by respiratory and digestive disease, the aetiologies of which are mostly infectious. Total cholesterol is also inversely associated with the risk of being admitted to hospital because of an infectious disease.' In other words, if you have low cholesterol, you are more likely to end up in hospital and more likely to contract an infection while there.

A Book I highly recommend by Barry Groves is Trick And Treat: How Healthy Eating Is Making Us Sick
 

 

I would also advise you to get The Oiling Of America

THE TRUTH & LIES ABOUT SATURATED FAT

This morning I was looking for evidence that a high refined vegetable oil/low saturated fat diet may be partially responsible for our autoimmune and infection related degenerative disease pandemic we are experiencing. I've read that the Lyme spirochete metabolizes cholesterol somehow, that low cholesterol may somehow play a role in Alzheimer's disease and other forms of brain dysfunction. There have also been several very good studies done by Judith Miklossy and  some by Alan McDonald that show that Alzheimer brains are often riddled with spirochetes.....lyme spirochetes and other types of spirochetes. Our brains are largely composed of cholesterol and cholesterol performs other important functions in our bodies.

Could low cholesterol diets be responsible for much of our suffering. Take notice of the yellow highlighted phrase about halfway down which I feel points to what may be one of the main reasons for our decreased immunity and susceptibility to dementia. The USDA is proposing new dietary guidelines which FURTHER reduces the amount of saturated fats in our diets. Could this be why the authorities are so confidently predictng a large increase in Alzheimer's in the future? We're not talking about just an increase in the elderly population due to aging baby boomers. We may be talking about artificially caused brain dysfunction which may be partially due to Governmental nutritional recommendations and corporate advertisng.

Of course there is much more research to do in this area and I think that people are beginning to wake up to this fact and that yes indeed the low fat diet may be one of the biggest scams in history. I found the following article by Ian McAllister to be very interesting. You may also want to check out the video.....The Oiling Of America.......in the righthand side bar at the top of this blog. 
SATURATED FAT & LOW CHOLESTEROL FRAUD SCAMS AND KILLS MILLIONS
By Ian McAllister
http://healthforu.info/health/diethealth/Saturated-Fat-Food-Lies.php  ....SEE WEBSITE FOR REFERENCES
The saturated fat and low cholesterol fraud earns the hoaxers billions of dollars each year and kills millions in America alone each year.


Lie 1. Saturated fat is bad for you so you must use unsaturated vegetable oils


Lie 2. Cholesterol is bad for you so you need a low cholesterol diet


Lie 3. Unsaturated vegetable oils are good for you
As I mentioned in my weight loss diet home page, the first recorded heart attack was in Britain in 1878. In the early 1900s Dr Dudley White (referred to as the founder of cardiology) said that he wanted to find out more about the new disease reported in European medical literature, but he had to wait until 1921 before he met his first heart attack patient.

During last century consumption of vegetable oils rose continuously, and so did the incidence of heart attacks. Now that we have got the facts out of the way, let's go back to the story of the lies.

Start of the scam
After the first world war the vegetable oil manufacturers were in trouble. Their main market was for manufacture of paints and varnishes and putty, because these all harden when exposed to Oxygen. That meant that they couldn't use them for food because they would form plaque in the blood vessels and cause heart attacks.

It would have cost the manufacturers a lot of money to buy pigs to try out the diet (the pig is the closest animal to humans as far as nutrition is concerned) but their salesmen persuaded pig farmers to buy the oils to feed to pigs. The farmers were delighted when the pigs put on weight explosively on the oil diet. That meant that they could cut down on feed costs because the pigs were slaughtered sooner. The salesmen weren't quite as pleased, because it would need fast talking to sell fattening oils to humans.


Then the farmers ran into trouble. The pigs getting a diet of unsaturated vegetable oils died of cancer or heart attacks before they could be slaughtered, even with their early obesity.

Fortunately for the manufacturers humans don't keep records of what they eat, so they can't usually associate what they have eaten with their health. So the salesmen set out to persuade humans that a diet rich in unsaturated vegetable oils was healthy.

They met high sales resistance because everyone was fond of butter, but the butter manufacturers started to centrifuge out the butter instead of churning it, resulting in a tasteless mess. So the margarine manufacturers were able to claim that "you can't tell margerine from butter" once butter had no taste.


People still took pride in using butter, so the manufacturers bribed a medical research worker to invent the cholesterol lie. Cholesterol is used widely by the body, especially by the brain. If the liver stopped making cholesterol we would rapidly become stupid. When you cut down on cholesterol in your diet your liver has to manufacture a little more, but that is easy because your liver makes a lot more cholesterol than you could possibly eat.

A couple of decades ago the man who invented the cholesterol lie admitted that he had been bribed to do so by the makers of margarine to discourage the use of butter in the diet and present margarine as a hearth healthy diet item, even though it is full of deadly trans fatty acids. It worked...


I expected the cholesterol myth to vanish overnight, but the story was suppressed by the media, and we still hear over and over again the lies about low cholesterol diets. Research workers have been trying for half a century to prove that cholesterol is bad for you but have failed, because it has to be made by your body for you to remain healthy. Your brain is half cholesterol, so if you interfere with your liver production of cholesterol you become more stupid.
Suppression of evidence
C.T. McGee tells an amusing story in his book published in 1993 "Heart Frauds: The Misapplication of High Technology in Heart Disease" Cour D'Alene, ID MediPress, p155-156. An old baboon was so much trouble that they decided to get rid of him by giving him a heart attack. They gave him only eggs to eat for a year. He still hadn't died so they killed him and examined him for cholesterol deposits in his blood vessels. There were none, so the information was suppressed.


This is typical of modern healthy diet research. If results are unfavorable to a pet theory they may appear in some obscure journal that nobody reads, but if the media take up the story they will be threatened with loss of advertising revenue.

The advantage of this lie is that if your cholesterol doesn't come down they can say that you aren't trying hard enough with your low cholesterol diet and sell you drugs to lower your cholesterol by interfering with the action of your liver. The media trumpet the results of tests showing that the drug lowered heart attacks by 0.1% but they keep quiet about cancer deaths increasing by 5% in the same experiment.


We are told that the plaque in our blood vessels is cholesterol. Well some of it is. Most of it is made from unsaturated vegetable oils in our diet, not the result of high cholesterol diets. Plaque is formed like a scab on a cut finger, to cure a breach in the skin. Unfortunately that can clog a blood vessel completely. The answer is to prevent the blood vessels being damaged in the first instance and to make sure that your diet has all the vitamins and minerals that you need to keep your blood vessels healthy and the cholesterol liquid enough to be carried round to your brain.


We are told that Eskimos don't get heart attacks, because their diet prevents blood clotting. That is true...they die of internal bleeding instead, referred to as "strokes".
Cellular damage of low cholesterol vegetable oil diet
Unsaturated oils are drying oils. That means that they harden when exposed to oxygen, whether it is in putty, or varnish, or your blood stream.

Our ancestors lived on a diet high in saturated fats. Dr Yamori reported that rats given high cholesterol and saturated fat diets had fewer strokes. Saturated fats don't produce free radicals, so antioxidants were not as necessary to our ancestors as they are in today's diets.


Most people know now that margarine is dangerous because of the trans fatty acids, but they don't realize that when they heat up any unsaturated oil they are also creating toxic products that don't happen when you use lard or butter for cooking.

The membranes round the cells in our body are mostly fat. Saturated fats are C shaped and interlock to produce a strong membrane. Unsaturated oils are straight so don't lock together, so weaker membranes are produced, more open to infection.

What is the solution
Refuse to accept the lies about saturated fats in your diet and cholesterol in your diet and polyunsaturated vegetable oils for cooking. Go back to using saturated fats in your diet. It is more healthy for your heart.


There is something even better. It is a saturated fat, but a short-chain saturated fat, not long-chain like the animal fats. The short-chain fat is used by your body in a completely different manner. You still need animal fats for all the old uses like building cell membranes, carrying fat-soluble vitamins, and building your brain, but the short-chain fats are used instead as a source of energy.


Better still, ordinary fats are used as fuel when the short-chain fats are burned for energy, so you have a healthy diet that will let you lose weight, and keep your brain and your immune system, and your heart healthy.


Coconut oil is the best short-chain oil but palm oil is also very good. I use about 100mls (7 tablespoons) of coconut oil each day, and the Filipinos have coconuts as more than 60% of their diet, but if you prefer to limit yourself to three tablespoons each day that is fine. If the only change that you make in your diet is to get rid of vegetable oils and use coconut oil instead you will lose weight.


As usual the less foods are processed, the better they are for you, so if you can get good fresh coconuts they are much better than oil. However the nuts I buy in my supermarket are mostly moldy and I have to throw them out.


The saturated fat and low cholesterol fraud is probably more deadly than all the others, because heart attacks, cancer, and strokes are the greatest killers after medical errors.


But conventional medicine pulls out all the stop with the next lie, making you feel guilty for the death of a loved one.


RED PALM OIL

VIRGIN UNREFINED COCONUT OIL  1 Gal. SAVE IN BULK

 

http://coldfusion.affiliateshop.com/AIDLink.cfm?AID=111632&Redirect=/bulkoil/a-c.html  

WHAT DOES AVOIDANCE OF CHOLESTEROL DO TO OUR BRAINS?

I have been doing a small amount of research lately into certain practices and lifestyles which tend to go together. For example...meditation, chanting, low fat and low protein diets,fasting,antidepressants, supposedly positive mind control programs, the increased suggestibility of the people, flouride,guided meditation (a form of hypnosis)...etc...are all often accepted together as either a road to enlightenment or health.. Maybe we need to take a step back and take a look at what effect these items have on the brain. What about those swirling visual patterns we stare at when listening to talk shows on the internet. I would bet that those patterns are meant to put us into a higher state of suggestibility.The article below just talks about one small facet of this seeming effort to put us all into la la land. Our bodies and brains need cholesterol. We are now even hearing from the mainstream media that a low cholesterol diet will HELP our memory and Alzheimer's. I have a feeling we need to do our research concerning this matter.


Learning, Your Memory, and Cholesterol
July, 2005
by Chris Masterjohn

One of the many important roles cholesterol plays in the body is in our nervous system, enabling learning and memory to take place. In fact, one of the reasons that sleep is beneficial to our learning and memory is because it enables our brain to make more cholesterol!

While the war on cholesterol is waged full-speed ahead, and many web sites are now touting low-fat, low-cholesterol diets as "brain-healthy" due to unfortunate misinterpretations about the role of a cholesterol byproduct in Alzheimer's disease, science is continually showing that cholesterol is one of the most important parts of our brains.

Sleep, Memory, Learning, and Cholesterol

Evidence to date strongly supports the concept that sleep plays an important role in increasing performance of newly learned activities, consolidating memories, and increasing brain plasticity-- which is the ability to form new, as well as break, connections between neurons called synapses.

These benefits of sleep are not simply the absence of stress from sleep-deprivation, but an independent, critical role, in the actual process of learning and memory-formation.1

But why?

Exciting research was published in the pages of Neuron last year (2004),2 identified about 100 genes that increase their activity during sleep. They found about as many that increased their activity during wake, and others whose activity varied with circadian rhythm, independent of sleep or wakefulness.

While there are many important cellular and molecular events that happen during sleep, and we are only cracking the surface in our understanding of them, one of the things this study showed is that cholesterol synthesis increases during sleep-- which, given the research described below, undoubtedly is part of the reason sleep is beneficial to mental functioning.

Cholesterol is abundant in the tissue of the brain and nervous system. Myelin, which covers nerve axons to help conduct the electrical impulses that make movement, sensation, thinking, learning, and remembering possible, is over one fifth cholesterol by weight.3

Even though the brain only makes up 2% of the body's weight, it contains 25% of its cholesterol.4

One of the groups of genes that the above study found to be upregulated during sleep were genes important for the synthesis and maintenance of myelin, including myelin structural proteins and genes relating to the synthesis and transport of cholesterol.

But the benefits of cholesterol extend beyond both sleep and myelin. In fact, in 2001, cholesterol was found to be the most important factor in the formation of synapses, the basis of our learning and memory.

READ MORE.... http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/Memory-And-Cholesterol.html

KNOW YOUR FATS.....  AN IMPORTANT BOOK

OUR BODIES NEED CHOLESTEROL....ESPECIALLY THE BRAIN

Cholesterol Is Essential to Life
Every Cell Demands Cholesterol
Aug 31, 2008 R.L. Coffield

Americans have been terrorized into the belief that cholesterol will kill them. Recent studies indicate that a lack of cholesterol is what is destructive to one's health.

Cholesterol Does not Cause Heart Disease
According to Dr. Diana Schwarzbein, a leading endocrinologist and author of The Schwarzbein Principle, “Eating cholesterol and fat do not cause heart disease and accelerated death. In fact, you must eat them to avoid heart disease.” Schwarzbein is a strong advocate that “…high total cholesterol numbers are not the cause of heart attacks. A high-insulin lifestyle is the cause of heart attacks.”

This sentiment is also expressed by a growing number of scientists and nutrition experts, including Gary Taubes in Good Calories, Bad Calories, and Sally Fallon in Nourishing Traditions. Since the majority of heart-attack victims have normal to low cholesterol numbers, it appears now that many early studies linking cholesterol to heart disease were greatly flawed, or greatly misinterpreted.

Lack of Cholesterol Causes Cancer and accelerated Aging

For a long time, Schwarzbein was one of the lone voices in the cholesterol brouhaha who advocated that a lack of cholesterol was dietary disaster. This is a fundamental fact since the lack of cholesterol causes cell membrane structures to alter, thus disrupting cell growth. Cancer can arise because of ensuing abnormal cell division. Thus, every cell in the human body requires cholesterol and fat to help safeguard one’s health

According to Taubes, the link between low cholesterol and cancer was appearing as early as 1980. Indeed, according to the Framingham Study, “…men whose total cholesterol levels were below 190mg/dl were more than three times as likely to get colon cancer as those men with cholesterol greater than 220; they were almost twice as likely to contract any kind of cancer than those with cholesterol over 280 mg/dl.”

Cholesterol is essential for brain function, helps form cell membranes both on the inside and outside, contributes to a healthy immune system and makes hormones. When these systems are depleted or starved for cholesterol, there is an increase in the potential for diseases of all types, including cancer, multiple sclerosis, depression, agitation, hormonal imbalance, poor thyroid function and a host of other debilitating conditions.

Cholesterol and Fat Are not the Enemy

According to Schwarzbein, “Fat and cholesterol are so important to life that your body has backup systems for their production.” In fact, the body can make cholesterol from carbohydrates.

Fallon states that “High serum cholesterol levels often indicate that the body needs cholesterol to protect itself from high levels of altered, free radical-containing fats.” Consumption of hydrogenated and vegetable oils and a diet too high in sugar and white flour are the main dietary mistakes made. Fallon goes on to say that “…cholesterol is needed in a poorly nourished body to protect the individual from a tendency to heart disease and cancer.”

An increasing mound of evidence strongly indicates that it is the excessive consumption of carbohydrates that is the leading cause of debilitating disease, heart attack and metabolic aging.

Consumer Confusion

Never before have so many diverse theories emerged regarding the dietary causes of modern diseases. Consumers have been busily chasing one theory after another, looking for the panacea to perfect health. In the long run, the message may be very simple: eat a well rounded diet avoiding excess consumption of any one food group, especially shunning the emphasis on low-fat, high-carb eating. Cholesterol and natural oils and fats are not the culprits they have been made out to be.

Read more at Suite101: Cholesterol Is Essential to Life: Every Cell Demands Cholesterol http://proteins-carb-fats.suite101.com/article.cfm/cholesterol_is_essential_to_life#ixzz0scGyV8Fv

TRICK AND TREAT BY BARRY GROVES. Read how we are being served up harmful dietary guidelines by Big Agriculture and the Pharamceutical Industry for the purpose of profit...not health. Learn what we should be eating and why. Highly recommended