WEIGHT-LOSS SPECIAL
For years we’ve been told to avoid eating fat and any foods containing cholesterol, but authors of new book The Diet Whisperer, Drs Paul Barrington Chell and Monique Hope-Ross, are out to debunk that, and share why most fats and cholesterol are not your enemies.
CHOLESTEROL. THE bad boy, right? Wrong. To make it watersoluble, cholesterol is transported in our blood by lipoproteins, a combination of fat and protein. Hence the suffix -C (see below). Cholesterol is required in the human body by every cell membrane, for cellular functionality and to make hormones like oestrogen and testosterone, as well as our fight-or-flight hormone, cortisol. It plays a major role in the structure of our myelin, the protective sheath around our nerves, allowing them to functional normally. It is quite simply a vital part of human life.
THE SO-CALLED BAD BOY
Lipoproteins are classified by weight. Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or cholesterol level (LDL-C), has had the most bad press because of its role in atherosclerosis: the furring up of our arteries, which leads to strokes, heart attacks and early death. However, LDL-C must be further classified by size. Small LDL-P is the number of small LDL particles in your blood (the smallest are the greatest implicated). The atherogenic furring of arteries is highly associated with small LDL-P and the lipoprotein apolipoprotein B (ApoB). These help explain why 30 per cent of heart attacks occur in people with low or normal LDL-C. Larger LDL-P particles are thought to be protective, so we must determine which LDL-C we have. When you get your cholesterol tested, request your LDL particle levels (LDL-P), as these correlate with a tripling of cardiovascular risk. High triglycerides (TGs) correlate with high LDL-P and vice versa.
80% … of your blood cholesterol is made in your liver, while 20 per cent comes from your diet.
In the over-60s, a raised total LDL-C correlates with better immunity, and reduced deaths from all causes.
THE SO-CALLED GOOD BOY
High-density lipoprotein (HDL) sucks up cholesterol around the body and returns it to the liver for processing. And HDL-C is known to be protective for our arteries (for further information, go dietwhisperer.com, where we keep the current best tests and interpretation of results). With cholesterol, one thing is for sure: there is no scientific consensus. This is far from sorted, so watch this space! The books A Statin Free Life by Aseem Malhotra and Fat Chance by Robert Lustig are good starting points. Dietary cholesterol only increases LDL cholesterol in so called ‘hyperresponders’ and, in these people, it tends to be the larger, less dangerous form. In the same people, it also increases the protective HDL, so the ratio of good-to-bad remains stable. Egg
