Arguably the most important "modifiable risk factor" for heart disease is one's "blood cholesterol level." This is an EASILY MEASURABLE THING! According to the U.S. National Institute for Health:
"Your blood cholesterol level has a lot to do with your chances of getting heart disease. High blood cholesterol is one of the major risk factors for heart disease. A risk factor is a condition that increases your chance of getting a disease. In fact, the higher your blood cholesterol level, the greater your risk for developing heart disease or having a heart attack. Heart disease is the number one killer of women and men in the United States. Each year, more than a million Americans have heart attacks, and about a half million people die from heart disease."
Green Vegetables Like Kale Can Help To Quickly Bring Down LDL Cholesterol Levels!
Scientists and researchers are just starting to understand how green vegetables like Kale can quickly and measurably bring down blood cholesterol levels. When you consume Kale for some reason your "bile acids" are used in the process of digesting it. The "bile acids" are then excreted.
When bile acids are excreted, the body needs to make more. One of the main uses of cholesterol in the body is in the production (or "synthesis") of new bile acid! So, high daily consumption of leafy greens can speed up the process of bile excretion and production, which can help to directly lower cholesterol levels.
Broccoli functions in the same manner, especially when it is steamed. The fiber in the broccoli binds together with bile acids in your digestive tract. Which causes bile acids to be excreted, which lowers cholesterol. Virtually every other green vegetable has similar properties. Additionally, you are ingesting incredible nutrients, which improve your health, help you lose weight and just feel great.
Pectin-Containing Fruits Like Apples and Pears Function The Same Way...
You have heard the old saying that "An Apple A Day Keeps The Doctor Away." This is literally true. "Pectin" is a fiber that binds to bile acids in the digestive system. So when you eat an apple, or a pear or a pile of green vegetables, you are triggering a process that can literally suck elevated levels of bad cholesterol out of your system!
The Ideal Way To Cook Kale:
According to whfoods.com "Kale can provide you with some special cholesterol-lowering benefits if you will cook it by steaming. The fiber-related components in kale do a better job of binding together with bile acids in your digestive tract when they've been steamed. When this binding process takes place, it's easier for bile acids to be excreted, and the result is a lowering of your cholesterol levels. Raw kale still has cholesterol-lowering ability - just not as much."
How Quickly Can One Reduce Their Cholesterol Levels?
This will depend on the person, but one CAN reduce levels significantly in a matter of months if they bring their consumption of greans, beans, salad and lentils up to very high levels. According to a Dr. Fuhrman article on reversing heart disease, the diet that will most quickly reduce cholesterol "takes into account the nutrient-per-calorie density of foods" in a "rigorous" manner.
At PEERtrainer we find that for general weight loss, a less rigorous adherence to the nutrient density can help boost overall compliance. However, if you are in a high risk category, you really want to pay very close attention to the detail of the advice that Dr. Fuhrman is giving out. Please!
In fact, Dr. Fuhrman has objected strongly to our "Diet Fusion" concept, because he views us as "watering down" his important ideas.
If you have any confusion about how to put his ANDI points system into practice, PLEASE take the time to go to your nearest Whole Foods Market. They are doing an amazing job of putting his ANDI points system into something that you can easily do, in a cost effective manner.
A Simple Plan To Eat High Amounts Of Cholesterol Reducing Foods
At PEERtrainer we have developed a simple list of foods to focus on and foods to move away from, as well as a simple incentive structure that helps you easily eat these foods each day. We call this the "Cheat System" and you can download it for free from this page.
PEERtrainer Community Member Jennifer S. Posted This On Our Facebook Wall:
the word "cause" was not used. Rather a "link" or "correlation" would be most accurate. Dr Fuhrman (no fan of the pharma industry) states:
"There is irrefutable scientific evidence that high cholesterol levels are associated with increased risk of Coronary Heart Disease (CHD). It has become increasingly evident that the direct relationship of cholesterol level to risk of heart attack exists at all but the very lowest cholesterol levels."
Posted by: Habib | January 04, 2011 at 10:19 AM
Jackie said in her article that, I quote "I don't think anyone will dispute the link between elevated cholesterol and heart attacks."
Well here are a great deal of people and studies who would dispute it, probably because they are not on the connected to the pharmaceutical industry,
Ravnskov, Uffe, MD, PhD The Cholesterol Myths: Exposing the Fallacy that Saturated Fat and Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease, New Trends Publishing Inc., Washington D.C., 2000.
Online at Cholesterol And The French Paradox, The Swiss Paradox, The Russian Paradox, The Lithuanian Paradox...Etc... by Malcolm Kendrick (an interesting article about the MONICA study, a long term study of cardiovascular disease, comparing cholesterol levels to CHD deaths in various countries.)
Online at How to bury $400 million by Malcolm Kendrick (an article about the "disappointing" results of the low fat Women's Health Initiative's heart intervention study, and even more interesting, a statistical analysis of deaths from CHD vs. % saturated fat consumption in various countries in Europe, based on MONICA 1998 data)
Online at Cholesterol - Friend or Foe? by Dr. Duane Graveline (an article that explains all the roles cholesterol plays in the body)
Online at The dangers of low blood cholesterol by Barry Groves
Online at bmj.com Rapid Response - Statins and Cancer: Cause for Concern by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD.
Online at The Oiling of America by Dr. Mary Enig, lipids researcher (an article about how the lipid hypothesis came about)
Online at Cholesterol - A Vital Building Block of Life (a website devoted to cholesterol)
Online at The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (a website of researchers, scientists and medical doctors that do not believe in the lipid hypothesis)
Online at Cholesterol, longevity, intelligence and health by Ray Peat
Anderson KM, Castelli WP, Levy D. Cholesterol and Mortality. 30 years of follow-up from the Framingham Study Journal of the American Medical Association 257, 2176-2180, 1987.
Krumholz HM and others. Lack of association between cholesterol and coronary heart disease mortality and morbidity and all-cause mortality in persons older than 70 years. Journal of the American Medical Association 272, 1334-1340, 1994.
Forette B, Tortrat D, Wolmark Y. Cholesterol as risk factor for mortality in elderly women. The Lancet 1, 868-870, 1989.
Dagenais GR and others. Total and coronary heart disease mortality in relation to major risk factors - Quebec cardiovascular study. Canadian Journal of Cardiology 6, 59-65, 1990.
Shanoff HM, Little JA, Csima A. Studies of male survivors of myocardial infarction: XII. Relation of serum lipids and lipoproteins to survival over a 10 year period. Canadian Medical Association Journal 103, 927-931, 1970.
Bottiger LE, Carlson LA. Risk factors for death for males and females. Acta Medica Scandinavica 211, 437-442, 1982.
Beaglehole R and others. Cholesterol and mortality in New Zealand Maoris. British Medical Journal 1, 285-287, 1980.
Shestov DB and others. Increased risk of coronary heart disease death in men with low total and low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol in the Russian Lipid Research Clinics prevalence follow-up study. Circulation 88, 846-853, 1993.
Marmot MG, Syme SL. Acculturation and coronary heart disease in Japanese-Americans. American Journal of Epidemiology 104, 225-247, 1976.
Newman, Thomas B. et al. Carcinogenicity of Lipid-Lowering Drugs Journal of the American Medical Association. January 3, 1996-Vol 275, No. 1.
Caso G et al. Effect of coenzyme Q10 on myopathic symptoms in patients treated with statins 2007 May 15; 99(10):1409-12.
Eric J G Sijbrands et al. Mortality over two centuries of in large pedigree with familial hypercholesterolaemia: family tree mortality study BMJ 2001;322:1019-1023 ( 28 April )
Full article: High Cholesterol does NOT cause heart disease | Trusted.MD Network http://trusted.md/blog/vreni_gurd/2007/04/13/high_cholesterol_does_not_cause_heart_disease#ixzz1A4tSxqzp
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Posted by: Richie I | January 04, 2011 at 09:53 AM