Lifelong Low Cholesterol Slashes Risk of Coronary Heart Disease

[onehandle]

A lifetime of low cholesterol levels triggered by genetic mutations significantly lowers the risk of coronary heart disease, researchers here reported.

Although the low levels of LDL cholesterol were triggered by genetic mutations, the results, which were published in the March 23 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, make a compelling case for a public health strategy promoting aggressive lipid-lowering strategies in young, healthy individuals.

snip...

The finding strongly suggests that "relatively moderate reductions in LDL cholesterol level (20 to 40 mg/dL) would markedly reduce the incidence of coronary heart disease in the population if sustained over a lifetime," they concluded.

snip...

He added that the "new findings suggest the need to redouble our efforts to reduce LDL cholesterol levels in younger persons by promoting healthy diets and reducing obesity. Even small successes will probably be leveraged for later gains in lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease."

http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/Genetics/tb/2915

[musiclawyer]

1. I eat cactus and oatmeal regularly

with good results

[shain from kane]

4. Ouch! Can't imagine that bowel movement. n/t

[Castilleja]

12. Haha! That was funny!

Although Nopales are supposed to be good for you, minus the spines. Tastes a little like green beans.

[Xipe Totec]

23. Taste a lot like green beans

But they stay crisp, and they have the texture of okra.

I love them in a vinaigrette salad.

[Puglover]

27. Ooooo Xipe....everytime I see your name...

:scared:

[Xipe Totec]

32. Does it make you jump out of your skin?

:hide:

[alarcojon]

2. Yeah, the fast food industry is going to love this study.

:rofl:

[Dogmudgeon]

3. Get rid of trans-fats, for a start

For reasons we don't yet entirely understand, trans-fat (hydrogenates, mainly) cause tremendous increases in LDL. This phenomenon was first observed decades ago, but largely ignored until recently. The causal factor is probably in one or more of the prostaglandin pathways, but that's just a guess on my part.

Reducing xenoestrogens would help, but other than the ones that come from soybean and rapeseed (canola) oil, most xenoestrogens are pollutants, and the Free Enterprise System would never submit to a clean-up effort. Tofu, Tempeh, Soy Sauce, and similar fermented and "metabolized" soy products are pretty low in xenoestrogens -- it's the fresh soybeans themselves that are loaded with them.

Moderate exercise and stress reduction also help, but since most people don't consider things like untreated chronic allergies and infections to be stress, it's much easier for the Press to make fun of fatties, even though the correlation (weight with lipid fraction change) is somewhat weaker, and probably secondary to insulin resistance.

Speaking of those bad fatties and insulin resistance, if you're just starting to gain weight, you may be developing it. Insulin resistance is powerful biochemical stress factor that eventually leads to the "Deadly Quartet" of hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and sleep apnea. Eat less sugar and watch more comedies! Mild to moderate exercise is a stress-reducer, too. More sex also helps, but only the stress-reducing kind. (Pronging the Mayor's engaged daughter would NOT fall into that category!)

Extreme exercise brings down weight, but it can cause a lot of damage on its own, metabolic as well as breaks and tears. If you're a serious athlete, thorough medical self-education is a must! And actually, if you are at all medically literate, it would be a good idea to keep up with your reading of medical issues.

If you can dedicate even an hour a week to learning the jargon and the basics, you will be able to follow most journal articles within a few months. The improvement in your understanding of biomedical issues and reduction in anxiety about your health will be well worth it!

--p!
No Insurance = No Treatment for Chronic Infection
Thanks, Mr. Bush!

[Mike03]

14. Soy Milk?

Your comments about soy are interesting but frightening to me, as I have recently been drinking quite a bit of soy milk. Do you know if that contains xenoestrogens?

[megatherium]

33. Xenoestrogens might be a hazard of soy milk. But gas definitely is. nt

[seemunkee]

5. The drug industry will love this study

Young healthy adults and children suddenly become lifelong lipid drug users.

[onehandle]

6. CNN's Dr. Sanji Gupta said that, "lipids should be in the water".

Like fluoride, I guess.

He's basically owned by the drug industry.

[niallmac]

7. Lots of evidence to support his conjecture.

I know you meant 'statins' not lipids and so far the studies on these drugs
find they are beneficial not only for reducing lipid levels but seem to be another weapon
with which to fight alzheimers. I'm no apologist for the drug corporations I'm just recognizing
this class of drugs seems to hold promise.

[Owsley]

9. Statins

Just be aware that the benefit of statin treatment for Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is still being debated. Nobody is completely sure what the connection is between brain cholesterol levels (very different than body cholesterol levels) and the development of AD. There is ample evidence to at least implicate cholesterol regulation in the disease, but it's not yet known exactly what role it plays. Most research has shown that lowering cholesterol by treating patients with Statins can slow the cognitive decline (a hallmark of AD), but again, it's not known exactly how this is happening.

I do believe that it is a bad idea to consider any kind of cholesterol-lowering drug for young people (ie, people who are still actively developing their brain). This is not to imply that the brains of Adults are static. Nothing could be further from the truth. But there is a difference between the developing brain of a young adult and the plastic brain of an adult. Cholesterol has at least been shown to be very important for brain development, synapse development, etc.

It's probably a good idea for young adults to eat a low cholesterol diet, but at this point I would have to say it's a very bad idea for young adults to start on any kind of cholesterol-lowering drug.

If you want links to this stuff, I'll dig them up.

Owsley

[niallmac]

22. Oh don't bother with the references. I absolutely agree

that feeding drugs to young persons is quite over the top.
We can drug up the younguns once we have successfully weaned our
youth off of junk food and addicted them to whole grains, fruits and vegetables
and determine at that juncture that the only answer is medication.
I am aghast at the number of children we have on ADD meds etc.
To my view we as a society are medicating away our responsibilties to
our children.

[progressivebydesign]

8. I'm a blueberry, oatmeal, no trans fat, flax seed, kinda gal.

hope it helps!!!

[daleo]

10. The mutation may be doing more than just lowering cholesterol

But, if all babies are fed a low cholesterol diet (better yet, given cholesterol lowering drugs) from now on, we should know the truth in 70 or 80 years.

[Owsley]

15. That is a bad idea

It is not a good idea to lower cholesterol levels in the developing brain, especially via cholesterol synthesis inhibitors (Statins). Statins actually inhibit the ability of our cells to make cholesterol, as opposed to just limiting the amount of cholesterol that our body absorbs from our food. Cholesterol is *essential* for the proper development of the brain and treating babies with statins would be a horrible idea.

Owsley

[daleo]

16. I was just kidding actually

I meant it as a satire on the pharmaceutical drive to drug us up our whole life long, under the banner of preventative medicine. Your points are well taken, of course.

[Owsley]

19. My mistake...

...just didn't pick up on the satire. Unfortunately you are spot on about the willingness of big pharma to justify something like this.

Owsley

[Solly Mack]

11. I eat healthy. And while I do look upon a bag of Cheetos with lust

I go home to my carrots. :)

I have a low fat to no fat, limited cholesterol in-take lifestyle.

[Emillereid]

13. For the other side of the cholesterol debate go to www.thincs.org

That's "The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics" and read Uffe Ravnskov's take on cholesterol: http://www.ravnskov.nu/cholesterol.htm
I urge you to buy his book and read the whole if you are really interested in what most of these cholesterol and statin studies really show. As for everything else in America, it's important to follow the money -- all the way to Big PHarma's banks. Many of the researchers are little more than shills or ghost writers for Big Pharma. The guys in this study might be legit -- I'll have to read their study and report back. But often this studies use relative instead of absolute statistics which greatly inflate the differences.

There is an ongoing study at UC San Diego documenting all the bad effects from statins. If you or someone you know has had an adverse reaction to statins or other cholesterol lowering drugs you can report in to: http://medicine.ucsd.edu/SES/contact.htm

[susanna]

25. thincs has some amazing discussions...

...I love checking in to see what the skeptics have to say. A lot of times when reading that site I find myself wondering if the "establishment" knows jack.

[Emillereid]

30. One of the biggest problems I've discovered in medicine is that most

doctors don't or can't keep up with the literature and that so much of their so called continuing education is mostly on pharmaceuticals.

[brentspeak]

17. Oatmeal, walnuts, olive oil

Oatmeal is supposed to remove cholesterol from the body by "clumping" and and carrying away the lipids that line one's intestine (but I wonder if it also rids the intestines of the good cholesterol, too)

Walnuts and olive oil are sources of HDL, the good cholesterol.

[kutastha]

18. fyi

HDL and LDL are not cholesterol. They are transportation complexes in the body that contain protein, cholesterol and fat, of which HDL contains only 5%. Conversely, LDL (low-density lipoprotein) contains low density of proteins, more fat and a high amount of cholesterol. LDL takes the crap into your vessels, HDL brings it back, thus high LDL is bad, high HDL is good.

Walnuts and olive oil do not contain HDL (it should be noted that vegetable oils, olive oils and the like are cholesterol-free).

These products do contain lower levels of saturated fats, of which can contribute to elevated LDL levels. HDL levels rise from exercise, decreased trans-fatty acids and weight loss.

On edit:
It makes sense that individuals with genetically inherited elevated cholesterol levels would benefit from decreased levels throughout their lives. I am not aware of studies of young brains exposed to statins early in life to show decreased function, but I find it doubtful that pediatricians will be prescribing lipitor for babies just yet. Lipitor is in fact approved for treatment of heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia in children as young as 10, and homozygous as young as 7. In these rare cases, one of course needs to debate the risks and benefits.

[Owsley]

20. Blood Brain Barrier

I'm fairly sure that Lipitor doesn't cross the BBB, so it may not have as much an effect on brain cholesterol levels as it does on plasma cholesterol levels. I think much of the current debate is centered around the idea of whether it's a good idea to prescribe Statins that are designed to cross the BBB. I want to emphasize that I am far from an expert in this area, but my general take is that is is a bad idea to mess with brain cholesterol levels too much. Like I posted before, there is some (not much, but some) evidence that the primary cause of Alzheimer's disease is cholesterol misregulation and that the well known hallmarks of the disease (accumulation of Amyloid-Beta, synapse degeneration, plaque formation, neurofibrillary tangles, neural degeneration, etc) are merely compensating for the initial cholesterol misregulation. I'm not sure if I agree that cholesterol misregulation is the primary cause of AD, but I do agree that it's a major part of the disease pathology.

Owsley

[kutastha]

21. indeed and interesting line of thought

I'm sure I could take the time (Friday evening not being it) to hunt down studies looking for a correlation between cholesterol and AD. Also of interest is the correlation b/w diabetes (which of course predisposes to atherosclerosis) and AD. It'd be interesting to see the incidence of AD in diabetics after years of statin therapy, however, we're far from that I'm sure.

Personally, I find them to be exciting and quite therapeutic drugs (and as always considering comorbid conditions and medications) will prescribe them for those who need them, yet not under the age of 18 (without the aforementioned maladies).

[Owsley]

24. Well...

...I'm in lab on a Friday night and have some papers right next to me, so here are a couple to read if you're interested:

Nat Cell Biol. 2005 Nov;7(11):1045-7. (Mattson, et al)

This is a decent short commentary on some of the more (accepted) current thoughts on the relationship between ABeta, APP processing and cholesterol. A short read and informative.

Lancet Neurol. 2005 Dec;4(12):841-52. (Shobab, et al)

A longer review, but covers many aspects of cholesterol and AD and even ventures on the clinical side. Another informative read.

Acta Neurobiol Exp (Wars). 2004;64(1): 71-9. (Koudinov, Berezov)

This one needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but it's a good representation of one line of thought that believes that ABeta accumulation is completely secondary to the cause of AD. Be careful with this one.


Those are just a couple of reads that are handy. I think that there is definitely something behind what's happening to cholesterol during AD, but like most of the research out there, I'm just not sure what cholesterol is doing. I think there are many interesting similarities between AD and Niemann-Pick type C (a cholesterol misregulation disorder that results in many AD like cognitive deficits). I'm actually pretty excited because there is a chance I might be able to do some work in this area. As far as the Statins go, there is promise there, but I'm just not sure we know exactly what's happening. Like many other aspects of science/medicine, it would be wise to show some restraint before jumping completely on the statin bandwagon.

Owsley

[llmart]

26. Just my very unprofessional opinion.....

beware when you hear "studies show." Our media like to use that phrase and the average Joe doesn't have the ability to ask, "who did the study, who paid for the study, what are their ulterior motives, etc."

"Studies" also showed (and we heard this for years before other "studies" disproved it) that taking hormone replacement post-menopause was the end-all and be-all of preventing heart disease in women, but we all know how that turned out.

I'll just take to using my common sense and intuition thank you. Life is a crap shoot at best and this idea that we can control everything about it is nuts. We are probably stressing ourselves out more by reading these conflicting articles/studies, and the stress is more to blame for premature death than what we eat.

But as I said, that's just my unprofessional opinion. I've lived to be almost 58 and don't take any drugs. I eat/drink anything I like in moderation. I'm content with my life. If I drop dead tomorrow, so be it.

[symbolman]

28. I think my body is talking to me

as of late I have been getting sick as hell when I eat anything that has HYDROGENATED crap in it, even my old love, Granola Bars have made me sick, and I was raised on butter and oat meal as a kid, ate catholic food, slim as a rail all my life until I hit 40 then adding 10 lbs per decade, and even that is speeding up lately (but I take pain meds for arthritis of the spine/neck so that slows down the metabolism)...

Also have had this craving for walnuts for some reason, then I heard they were good for me.. moderation by the way, if you eat too many of them they sort of slide right on out in a hurry, useful if you suffer from constipatin I guess.

I worry a bit as my dad had alzheimers as well as 12 feet of colon removed about 14 years before his death, my whole family submits to the old "driving a train up my ass" medical technique, every three years or so, and one of my sisters suffered from rectal cancer, so it's in the family..

But at the same time I just can't walk around munching on carrots all day long, I need MEAT, dammit.. not proud of it, but pork and chicken for the most part - I can't eat fast foods anymore either, after a Bking meal or McSluggets or even TacoSmell I get the feeling like I've been punched in the stomach, so I have to prepare my own food, or I don't bother to eat until I can..

BTW, as a kid I studied biology a bit and notice a doctor that had a premise that we all EAT TOO MUCH to begin with. He did a study 40 some odd years ago with white mice where he made sure that they got all the minerals and vitamins they needed, but with reduced food intake. As a result, many of the mice actually very nearly doubled their age and were healthy the whole time, when they did die it was a nice mellow death in their sleep, just worn out..

Because of that study I decided to simply eat less all my life, but to eat those foods with a nice mix of vitamin and minerals as the body needed.

At 53 I can sometimes pass for someone in their early 40's, I've fooled a lot of people when it comes to my age, dunno if it's genetics or whatever.. don't know about the drugs tho, if I'd missed out on the latter part of the 60's I might even had lived to 120 :)

[Owsley]

29. Caloric Restriction

Not sure what doctor you're talking about, but it sounds a lot like someone advocating a Caloric Restriction (CR) diet. You're right in that "studies have shown" that mice fed on a CR diet are generally more healthy than those fed on an ad libitum (as much as they want) diet. Benefits include, but are not limited to, longer life span, lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol levels, etc. From what I've read, the benefits in humans are much less drastic. If you want to read about the variety of benefits of a CR diet, go to pubmed.org and search for "Mark Mattson". He's probably the person that I've read the most and although his work is somewhat on the fringe of mainstream science, I still think he's pretty well respected.

I'm with you though...sometimes I just need to eat some meat. Here's hoping your genetics are kind to you in your later years.

Owsley

[reprobate]

31. I have the same problem, symbolman. Now at 65 I'm often taken for 50.

People say I have good genes.

I have to remind them that I have some nice shirts, too.