Forget about everything you have heard regarding the so-called LDL “bad” cholesterol.
This recent study found that the lower levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in people aged 65 and older is leading to greater risk of heart disease and death.
Led by Dr. Valerie Tikhonoff from the University of Padua, Italy, the 12-year study of 3120 men and women 65 and older found that despite common belief that higher levels of LDL cholesterol has been considered unhealthy, just the opposite is true for the elderly.
The female study participants who had higher levels of LDL cholesterol saw a decrease in mortality rate and both men and women reduced their risk of a fatal heart failure with greater elevations in LDL cholesterol.
Bucking conventional wisdom promoted by most health experts, Dr. Tikhonoff and her colleagues concluded that this study will undoubtedly “add to the uncertainty of the role of elevated levels of LDL cholesterol as a risk factor for mortality in old people.”
Why is there “uncertainty” about the findings of this study, Dr. Tikhonoff? I think they are crystal clear. Everything we have been told about how “bad” LDL cholesterol is hazardous to our health has been yet another scaremongering tactic from our government and those entrusted with providing us with information about our health. Just as the low-fat diet has been found to be a big fat lie in recent studies, so too is this idea about higher levels of LDL cholesterol being bad for our health.
The study was published in the December 2005 issue of the Journal of the American Geriatric Society.
The risk of a fatal heart attack and death from high-LDL cholesterol, according to the study, “was curvilinear … decreasing nonlinearly with LDL cholesterol.”
Tikhonoff noted study participants who chose not to take cholesterol-lowering medications such as statin drugs were less likely to develop a cardiovascular condition which could lead to death.
All of this seemingly contradicts all of the messages we are bombarded with to lower our cholesterol levels without any regard for why this is important. Eating a healthy low-carb diet and exercise will naturally stabilize your total cholesterol levels and will even raise your HDL “good” cholesterol levels dramatically in some cases.
The unnecessary and frankly irrelevant concerns over low-carb raising your cholesterol should be put to rest now with studies like this one proving yet again that the bruhaha about cholesterol is much ado about nothing.
What are the pharmaceutical companies gonna do with the undeniable truth from this study that LDL levels that get TOO LOW can be deadly? Will they now make a pill to help RAISE LDL? Hmmmm? Don’t ever forget that cholesterol medications are all about the money and NOT about health. Always have been, always will be.
Will people ever wake up to the undeniable FACTS staring them right in the face? We can only hope!
