why have we been lied to about cholesterol and heart disease?

[Determinator]

YouTube - MONICA

additionally has anyone seen the UK dietary studies on the Masai tribes in Africa? amazing.
I'll find that one next. The Masai diet is enormously high in animal fat and very little of anything else yet they exhibit almost no trace of heart disease or cancer or diabetes. hmmmmm.

[Cashregister]

why have we been lied to about cholesterol and heart disease?

Australian Aboriginal people have incredible probelms with diabetes type 2, they have huge alcohol problems (i'm generalising here), their communities have been decimated, their diets are atrocious, they have terrible child mortality rate for a developed country (in some places at least) and they also have issues with petrol and glue sniffing, and I could go on and on.

To use them as a baseline is strange to say the least. I can see the issues with cholesterol, but i'm not surprised about thier heart disease rate - their health issues are enormous. ALso there are so few of them - less than 1% of our around 20 million population.

So not too sure about where this one is going....OK low cholesterol but there are so many other factors, so not sure what he's trying to say. It's OK to have high cholesterol cause you can die from heart disease anyway?? Have not been involved in this debate at all so am coming from a rather ignorant perspective!

The Masai...lots of excercise?? Haven't seen the research - got a link to it?? And don't some indigenous people metabolise things differently, I know there was some work done on Aboriginal people and the way the metabolise alcohol was different from europeans etc. And what about the Inuit, and some European countries where diets are very high in animal fat, particularly in winter - but they have other factors that offset like huge amounts of Omega 3 etc.??

I think it's the combination that's the problem - cholesterol may be in the picture somewhere but smoking, drinking, sedentary lifestyle etc and then a diet high in fat...well....heart disease maybe??
Confused

Hope this makes sense determinator?

Here they tend to talk about it in terms of a risk factor - i'm sure if I had the perfect healthy lifestyle I wouldn't have to worry if my cholesterol got high - but, hey I dont by a long shot!!

I still reckon it's a factor given our lifestyles. The Australian Aboriginal people have so many other factors maybe it's insignificant. Many of them would not live to the age where cholesterol starts becoming a factor - it's shocking. I have visited a number of remote indigenous communities in the course of my work and it is absolutely shocking.

Oh dear a rant - procrastinating (easier than doing my work!). But I am interested - will look at more of the stuff, and would like to see the UK stuff if you have a link.

Cheers
Cashy

[Determinator]

why have we been lied to about cholesterol and heart disease?

Cashy, not to worry I love it!

as a lad growing up in Oz I was aware first hand how the Aboriginee diet was..it was just as crappy as the white kid diet ...really! they all ate garbage. lots of white flour and sugar. mostly processed foods. all the kids were covered in boils and looked diseased...both Aboriginee and white.

I'll locate the link for the Masai study shortly. the very first thing that detractors claimed was that there must be something unique about the way the Masai genetic body chemistry is to consume this hugely animal fat diet and be so healthy and disease free. So the UK doctors therefore followed groups of the indigenous Masai that relocated to other places that had diets containing refined cereals/grains/seeds white flour etc and sure enough out of the blue they developed all the heart disease, cancers, diabetes etc that the followers of the retarded "food pyramid" people suffer. I must find the link...but do a keyword search on the masai diet..most interesting indeed.
My personal belief is that starting in the 50's the same big business mega-corporations that "assisted" us in developing the stupid food pyramid model were responsible also for the decimation of the American small farms. We have become programmed that real food is weird and gross, and that proper food comes in a cardboard box and is cooked in the microwave. BARF!!!

see Cashy...I like to rave too it's all good.

[Cashregister]

why have we been lied to about cholesterol and heart disease?

Must admit i'm not too good on following the food pyramid as proposed by Kellogs et al - we eat alot of olive oils and olives and avocados and that's all lvely and fattening - but all that fruit and veg a day and,well, cereals grains etc - we try but the closest we get i brown rice/wild rice and wholmeal pasta.

I just try to do Low GI stuff cause watching weight and SOphie's coming up to the point where puberty is round the corner and want her to start eating carefully - and she's cool with it.

Now just give up the cigs, the booze and the sedentary lifestyle and all will be fine - ha!

My dad had sky high cholesterol, clogged arteries (no pulse in right leg) - had to have pypass across the tummy, then got diabetes, now had 3 toes amputated - recently had 2 strokes but hearts OK - still, leg may drop off any day! It all seems like "factors" to me - the thing that decreased his chol was exercise (played tennis 3 times a week until last year and he's 72) cause he sure didn't change diet the grumpy old bugger.

So I agree may not be linked to diet but still think it causes some major crap if you have other factors as well....

I think he'd rather have heart disease - getting sick of losing parts! He is so much like the Black Knight in Monty Python's Holy Grail - he'll be there all stumps saying "come on and serve you bastard!!!!".

blah blah again.

Oh and BTW no drinking last night!

[Determinator]

why have we been lied to about cholesterol and heart disease?

oh my goodness Cashy so sorry to hear what your dear Dad is going through...glad he's got a good sense of humor tho!

personally I couldn't stick to any diet for fear of boredom...I'm really a flavor first kind of guy...health is a close second but it's still second!

AF....yes! damn fine work!

[nancy]

why have we been lied to about cholesterol and heart disease?

Hi!

This is an interesting thread.

I think the video is simplistic. Doesn't explain much. Cash register, your comments are really interesting and raise a lot of good questions, not answered in the video.

I wonder, what point are they trying to make? that eating animal fat is OK. What kind of animal fat? and how is it cooked?

Do cholesterol levels reflect good cholesterol, bad cholesterol or both? and yeah, is life expectancy an issue? does this population die before development of heart disease? In general, I find it hard to trust statistics.

Thanks for posting determinator.

[Determinator]

why have we been lied to about cholesterol and heart disease?

indeed statistics on their own can be misleading and this appears to be just a tiny part of a properly conducted WHO study. Certainly won't see it on the news though. I think the point is simply that cholesterol is not the evil substance we were lead to believe as a solo dietary influence.
the animals in question for the Masai are mostly cows btw. The population generally dies of "old age" unlike so may of us following the "good food pyramid".
I must find some links! stay tuned.... this was supposed to be a primer to get us to question dietary 'facts' and it's working
There are also some interesting nutrients the masai get from tree bark (of all things) that are possibly the most powerful antioxidants to date...hmmmm.

[xtexan]

why have we been lied to about cholesterol and heart disease?

Det:

I am interested in the chemical name of the Masai antioxidant. I'm on dial up at home and youtube is blocked at work, so the video is not really an option.

Anyway, I used to use OPC-3 a while back, and quit taking it because of the expense (it was a multi-level marketing product). So later I found separate supplements for the things in OPC-3, which were grape seed extract, red wine extract (no alky of course), and pine bark extract. The pine bark active chemical was pycnogenol, and I found that as a separate supplement.

So I was wondering if the Masai tree bark chemical was similar in structure to pycnogenol. Just my chemical curiosity picqued here.

Neil

[beatle]

why have we been lied to about cholesterol and heart disease?

I've never heard of OPC-3. What is it?

A question about grape seed extract: I was at a party this weekend, looking for something to feed my oral fixation (besides alcohol of course!) and found a bowl of big red grapes. Well, I popped one in my mouth and found it full of seeds, but lacking anything into which I could spit the seeds, I just swallowed them... following that ensued a conversation as to whether or not swallowing grape seeds is healthy. Do you get the same benefits as grape seed extract? Also, does grape seed oil give the same benefits? --Guess I should have started a separate thread for this... but no one seems to be responding to my threads these days=-(

[xtexan]

why have we been lied to about cholesterol and heart disease?

beatle:

OPC-3 is a blend of anti-oxidant nutrients in what is called an "isotonic" solution. Supposedly, this enhances absorption into the body. It did make a difference in the way I felt, but one has to buy it from a multi-level marketing person. The only way to get it at lower cost, is to become a multi-level marketer too. I had a very bad experience with the Amway thing years ago, where they sucked money from me to be buy audio tapes at gouging inflated costs, so I washed my hands of the whole thing. I am not a good salesmen, and have never had the ability to run the "con game" on others successfully, so not for me.

I do not know about eating the whole grape seeds, and I know drinking red wine is not good for me (to say the least). But the essential extracts contain the antioxidants, and not any of the other bad elements. One can buy grape seed extract, red wine extract, and pycnogenol as supplements in and of themselves.

Here is one link to one OPC-3 page, but if you Google it, a lot of hits will come up.
Market America :: Built on Product. Powered by People.

I would stay with the specific supplements, and follow their recommendations after a bit of online research for yourself.

Neil

[beatle]

why have we been lied to about cholesterol and heart disease?

Thanks Neil. I know I could just google things (and believe me I DO!), but then you get so much BS that you never know what is what. I figured you would be a better source of information. (And you are!)

How did the OPC-3 make a difference in the way you felt? Something good?

[InnerStrength]

why have we been lied to about cholesterol and heart disease?

I think a lot of the problem has to do with preservatives.
Anyways this is a really cool thread and I am sick so that is all I can offer right now! lol
Cheers all
Jen

[trixietrack]

why have we been lied to about cholesterol and heart disease?

I make salads with grape seed oil. I think that stress is a big factor when it comes to high cholesterol and heart disease.
I also agree with the fact that we eat way too much sugar and processed flours, not to mention artificial flavorings and additives.
animal fat is good for you in small servings.

[Determinator]

why have we been lied to about cholesterol and heart disease?

ok here's the info on the tree bark....really interesting:

Tapping Indigenous Knowledge: Antioxidants in the Traditional Diet of the Maasai: International Development Research Centre

Xtexan, have you looked into an antioxidant fruit juice called NingXia Red? very interesting. it also tastes good amazingly. Most of the antioxidant drinks are nothing but cheapo energy drinks as you all might already have presumed.

Jen, hope you feel better soon!

[Determinator]

why have we been lied to about cholesterol and heart disease?

and one more for cholesterol skeptics across the land:

Let Them Eat CAke, Butter, Cream

be sure to read to the bottom where it covers inflammation... that appears to be the key. to develop a low inflammation diet. There are probably several ways of doing this.