Team-BHP - The great Cholesterol debate: Is it good or bad for you?

I was actually quite surprised to read this article: http://preventdisease.com/news/12/03...-Disease.shtml where he writes about what really causes the heart diseases and how doctors have been misguided by the pharma companies and their "research".
The doctors acting on good intent have actually harmed their patients by prescribing drugs that bring down the cholestrol levels in the blood.
Whereas the issue lies somewhere else: inflammation of arteries (most prob caused by increased blood sugar levels etc)

Yes there is a counterview too: http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/lundell.html

And a more balanced view: http://www.docsopinion.com/2012/06/0...heart-disease/

On a similar note Swedish health advisory has come up with recommendations on countering obesity by going low carb and high fat: http://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f6873/rr/673823
http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/swe...fat-nutrition/ (Fat is the best thing for those who want to lose weight. And there are no connections between a high fat intake and cardiovascular disease.)

http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp...iness_plan.htm (talks about some reasearch)
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/ar...part-four.aspx (talks about quite a lot of research)
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/ar...-revealed.aspx

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BTW, Cholestrol is necessary for normal production of sex hormones. :-)

In addition: don't most of the people die of cardiac arrest actually when they die in their old age naturally in sleep?

Docs of this forum we need some insights into this controversial topic ...

Quote:

Originally Posted by H_Dogg72 (Post 3387856)

Wheat flakes are fully whole wheat ,so the absorption is pretty slow.
The other stuff like corn flakes is highly processed and lacks in whole wheat as well as in fibre.

As we've always read ,the two kinds of cholesterol ,good and bad.

A good diet is what's important. Along with some exercise.

Whole wheat isnt necessarily good. It contains gluten and a range of other anti nutrients that mess up with body metabolism. Wheat flakes are highly processed food. No grains are good sources of fibre. Fibre content of vegetables is 5-10 times that of grains.

Any kind of grain flakes being good is a result of marketing.

Modern medical science (Allopathy) is very confusing and inconclusive on a variety of topics. One day you will read about some research, and another day you will hear about a contrarian research.

I would say the best prevention is to stick to our own Indian diet which is one of the most balanced diets. Don't go too much in detail into number of carbs/fat/calorie content of food. All this is effort is to find some "formula" or logic to prevent/treat a desase. Instead of all the jargon - if we all use common sense in what we are eating, things will be much simpler.

Broadly, avoiding processed food and taking a high fibre diet along with fruits and vegetables with necessary exercise (yoga/walking) - is a simple, methodological and proven approach to deal with any disease. This is the best Health Advisory given to mankind by our own ancestors so why bother with what a Swedish or American study has to say.

DCEite you are spot on. We are unnecessarily looking at West. Our diet should be as per Geographical and climatical conditions. So our age old Indian diet is right. It is time tested.

We should have balanced diet. We should eat that much which we can digest. Overeating is bad. Ayurveda is the norm.

And yes natural sugar is not bad, refined sugar is bad. Also on days when we take vegetarian diet inclusion of Desi Shudh Ghee is advisable contrary to popular belief, which is good for clearing toxins from body.

Also there is myth that Rice is bad for Diabetic patients. Those who can understand Marathi can watch a program on Saam channel on Sunday between 930-1030.

Disclaimer- I am common man not an expert.
-Sanjay

Not to discredit or offend anyone, but you should choose to believe stuff that's published in peer-reviewed scientific journals over lifestyle magazines or newspapers or worse the web, where anyone can propagate anything. The myriad posts promoting everything from weed to LSD on facebook these days is ample proof for this.

Everything has its merits and demerits. What's important is how they weigh up.

It's also important to know what exactly one's talking about. A little knowledge, they say, is a dangerous thing. And this is especially true of medicine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HydroFuel (Post 3388328)

And yes natural suger is not bad, refined suger is bad.

All sugar is bad. Even fruit juice isn't good. Eating fruits is much much better.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCEite (Post 3388017)

I would say the best prevention is to stick to our own Indian diet which is one of the most balanced diets.

What is Indian diet? There are dozens of Indian diets which have no similarity between each other.

One-77 is right w.r.t. peer-reviewing. The problem is, most so-called research is actually funded by entities with vested interests, be they corporations manufacturing certain drugs, or lobbying groups representing various interests (corn farmers, grain farmers, tobacco farmers etc.).

It is becoming increasingly difficult to determine who exactly has paid for every research finding because these entities cover up their tracks very cleverly with umbrella corporations etc. And this is why we find such contradictory research every now and then (coffee is good, coffee is bad, eggs are good, eggs are bad) etc. Each entity with the vested interest pays for research and suppresses any disadvantageous findings from being published.

The researchers themselves are also in a bind because these entities fund their research and give them grants etc., all of which will dry out if the researcher does not toe the line.

Personally I was diagnosed with NIDDM in 2003 and since then have been on a low-carb high-fat diet, and my cholesterols, my triglycerides, and my blood-sugars have been almost in the non-diabetic range, and I have lost a truck-load of weight.

I do not believe that the Indian diet is in any way healthful because it is almost nothing but carbohydrates (meaning, sugar). This is one of the reasons there is such a high prevalence of Diabetes in India and in other Asian countries where also the diet consists mainly of carbs.

It is not about Western or Indian fads/fashions/genetics etc. According to my limited knowledge of Indian mythology, everyone in India was non-vegetarian until sage Agasthya ate his own son (Nala) by mistake and immediately declared that all Brahmins have to be vegetarian. Nice way to make everyone suffer for one's error!

Cheers

I agree with DCEite. The only concern is, India is quite diverse, and food habits are quite diverse too. Carboy asked a pertinent question: what is Indian diet?

I had gained a lot of weight and I met a dietician about 3 years back to get myself back to shape. One thing she was very insistent is that we should go back to the same diet which our older generation was following. For example, we are basically from North Karnataka, but have settled down at Bangalore. She advised me to go back predominantly to our native food habits (jawar roti, etc), and this has really helped me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samurai (Post 3389000)

I have started eating eggs with gusto since last year. Can't imagine how many generations were kept in fear of egg.

Check the Sugar Busters Diet. It's not very new. It's been there for some time. It was made by doctors who were themselves heart patients, I think. It contains lot of meat, eggs, fat etc.

Cutting carbs is the most of important thing for a lot of heart patients.
For many patients who have both diabetes & heart issues, it's the diabetes which is responsible for heart attacks. There is an anticoagulant which is naturally present in the blood which prevents clots. However, if your sugar levels are high, this anticoagulant is ineffective.

My wife lost 2 kgs in a month by doing nothing else consciously except stopping fruit juice (stopping the pure juice with no sugar added) & having fruits instead. Not just that, her hunger reduced big time after cutting juice. Stop all pop (Coke, Pepsi, mazaa, fanta etc). Switch to Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi. Another big thing to cut is Maida. Maida is equivalent to pure sugar. Maida is there in almost all foods. Biscuit, Bread, pastries etc are all Maida. Most mass market brown bread is also brown coloured White Bread. Batura is maida. Naan is maida. Tandoori Roti is part Maida. If you see "Wheat" in a product label, it means Maid. If it's actual Wheat, it's always labelled as Whole Wheat. For stuff which contain both Wheat & Whole Wheat in the ingredients list, a lot of them are majority Maida, with a little Whole Wheat. Even Whole Wheat isn't that good as per Gary Taubes. But it's obviously a 1000 times better than Maida. Stuff made of Chana Dal (Besan) is very very low glycemic index - hence very good.