Why changing your diet didn’t lower your cholesterol

Have you ever tried to get somewhere using the wrong map? That is exactly what most people are doing when they try to lower their cholesterol following mainstream nutritional advice — eat only the egg whites, choose margarine over butter, and avoid red meat like the plague! Unfortunately this misguided nutritional advice is going to get you nowhere, just like reading the wrong map.

Cholesterol is a repair molecule in the body and is necessary for cell function, hormone production, and Vitamin D production.

Yes, necessary. There is scientific evidence that suggests you are actually more likely to die of low cholesterol than of high cholesterol. Interesting, isn’t it?

So if cholesterol is a necessary molecule in our body, why does it go up? The short answer is the body is trying to fix something and because cholesterol is a repair molecule, it is going to start making more of it. What is cholesterol trying to fix?

The answer is one word…inflammation.

Chronic inflammation is now implicated as the underlying cause of several chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and autoimmune diseases.

Now here is the really interesting part. Do you know what foods in your diet stimulate inflammation? More often than not the underlying trigger is too much sugar or food sensitivities. And when I say sugar I am also including all processed, refined food carbohydrates like cereal, bread, crackers, bagels, pasta, rice, and anything that has the words low-fat or no fat on it. Once digested these foods are sugar in your bloodstream. The sugars travel to the liver after being absorbed and stimulate it to make more cholesterol.

That’s right, sugar in your diet (not fat) stimulates your liver to make more cholesterol.

That means you should eat the eggs and butter but not the toast. Eat the steak but not the pasta (have it with plenty of vegetables instead). Get almost all of your carbohydrates from vegetables and fruits and very little to none from grains. Avoid processed, refined foods that have artificially produced fats (that means margarine) and high fructose corn syrup. Your liver will thank you for it.

Remember, high cholesterol is a warning sign that something is wrong.

It is not a symptom that needs to be suppressed by medication, especially if you don’t know the cause.