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When it comes to understanding cholesterol most Americans know there is good cholesterol and bad cholesterol; those who are health conscious often have been hoodwinked into believing they should not eat too many foods that contain cholesterol. This overly simplistic and inaccurate understanding of cholesterol is required by Big Pharma to con millions of Americans into taking toxic statins to lower their “bad” cholesterol. The latest study discovers a new role for cholesterol within cells: preventing cancer growth.
No human being can survive without cholesterol. It is truly the backbone of your survival, both at a cellular level, and hormonal level, and even a reproductive level. To understand the context and importance of this new cholesterol discovery allow me to quickly review some basic information about cholesterol.
Good cholesterol (HDL) and bad cholesterol (LDL) are very large molecules made up of fragments of cholesterol, fatty acids, and protein.
I liken LDL to a UPS truck because its primary function is to transport fat soluble nutrition packages through the waterways of your circulation and all around your body. It can also double as a police car, using the antioxidants it has on board, to help neutralize problems that are larger than they should be. It is far from bad; it is required to get nutrition to your cells. Injured LDL cholesterol is bad, not LDL in and of itself.
HDL is like a tow truck, hauling spent LDL and hopefully any damaged LDL back to your liver to be recycled or reloaded.
Both HDL and LDL are large molecules in comparison to one molecule of cholesterol, which is a sticky rigid substance about the size of a brick in comparison to an LDL UPS truck. In fact, fragments of cholesterol are typically transported as one of the packages on the LDL UPS truck to cells in case they need some.
Every cell in your body can make its own cholesterol bricks and can accept cholesterol from a UPS truck delivery. In fact, cells can even post a UPS call tag so that extra cholesterol can be picked up and taken back to the liver. Cholesterol is used to prop up the structure of the cell membrane, giving a cell a three dimensional structure. Most of the cholesterol in your body is these little bricks that help make up a healthy cell. Without them you would be flat as a pancake.
These cholesterol bricks are also the foundation for your adrenal hormones (managing stress) and sex hormones. They are required to make vitamin D as well as bile. They are highly concentrated in your nervous system, making healthy brain cells and are part of the structure of neurotransmitter receptors that are vital to normal brain health.
In other words, having the proper amount of cholesterol is absolutely indispensable to your health and survival.
The current cholesterol lowering fad began in the 1980s with the Mr. Fit study (Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial), which followed 350,000 men, age 35-57, for six years and included their total cholesterol as one measurement being followed. When total cholesterol hit 280, deaths from cardiovascular disease jumped up sharply. Prior to that number they slowly rose as cholesterol increased.
However, the point typically ignored by the medical profession and Big Pharma is that the results for all-cause mortality showed a bell shaped curve. While total cholesterol of 280 or more was bad news as a risk factor, just as many people died whose total cholesterol was less than 140. These people were not dying of heart disease, rather than infections, cancer, and accidents. It is rather appalling that the gold standard of statin prescribing is to push down the total cholesterol to less than 140.
There are always adverse side effects when statins lower LDL cholesterol too much. This actually triggers cholesterol starvation in cells, which is anti-survival. Cell membranes become weaker and age faster. Nerve cells don’t transmit as well. Vitamin D levels go down. Sex drive is a thing of the past.
The new study is the first to discover and explain how low levels of cellular cholesterol, which clearly do occur when LDL levels are forced abnormally low by drugs, cause a break down in cellular regulation of growth which allows for the unchecked growth of cancer.
The researchers discovered that cholesterol within cells binds to something called cholesterol-binding proteins or ORPs. ORPs were thought to be involved in transport of cholesterol within the cell. The new research says otherwise, proving that ORPs regulate cell growth. If cholesterol does not bind to them, because the level is too low, then ORPs go wild and stimulate excessive cell growth. Cancer must have active ORPs to survive.
The results of this study predict that excessive lowering of cholesterol with statins helps cause cancer, especially in individuals with other risk factors for cancer. Big Pharma and the FDA don’t want to think about it and gleeful doctors will keep handing out statins like candy. When will this insanity ever stop?
There is a huge difference in your health between having good cholesterol numbers because you are healthy and having good numbers because you are drugged.
If you are looking for ways to naturally manage your cholesterol health please review an earlier in-depth article I wrote on this topic, The Five Key Things You Can Do to Lower LDL Cholesterol Healthfully.
More...
No human being can survive without cholesterol. It is truly the backbone of your survival, both at a cellular level, and hormonal level, and even a reproductive level. To understand the context and importance of this new cholesterol discovery allow me to quickly review some basic information about cholesterol.
Good cholesterol (HDL) and bad cholesterol (LDL) are very large molecules made up of fragments of cholesterol, fatty acids, and protein.
I liken LDL to a UPS truck because its primary function is to transport fat soluble nutrition packages through the waterways of your circulation and all around your body. It can also double as a police car, using the antioxidants it has on board, to help neutralize problems that are larger than they should be. It is far from bad; it is required to get nutrition to your cells. Injured LDL cholesterol is bad, not LDL in and of itself.
HDL is like a tow truck, hauling spent LDL and hopefully any damaged LDL back to your liver to be recycled or reloaded.
Both HDL and LDL are large molecules in comparison to one molecule of cholesterol, which is a sticky rigid substance about the size of a brick in comparison to an LDL UPS truck. In fact, fragments of cholesterol are typically transported as one of the packages on the LDL UPS truck to cells in case they need some.
Every cell in your body can make its own cholesterol bricks and can accept cholesterol from a UPS truck delivery. In fact, cells can even post a UPS call tag so that extra cholesterol can be picked up and taken back to the liver. Cholesterol is used to prop up the structure of the cell membrane, giving a cell a three dimensional structure. Most of the cholesterol in your body is these little bricks that help make up a healthy cell. Without them you would be flat as a pancake.
These cholesterol bricks are also the foundation for your adrenal hormones (managing stress) and sex hormones. They are required to make vitamin D as well as bile. They are highly concentrated in your nervous system, making healthy brain cells and are part of the structure of neurotransmitter receptors that are vital to normal brain health.
In other words, having the proper amount of cholesterol is absolutely indispensable to your health and survival.
The current cholesterol lowering fad began in the 1980s with the Mr. Fit study (Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial), which followed 350,000 men, age 35-57, for six years and included their total cholesterol as one measurement being followed. When total cholesterol hit 280, deaths from cardiovascular disease jumped up sharply. Prior to that number they slowly rose as cholesterol increased.
However, the point typically ignored by the medical profession and Big Pharma is that the results for all-cause mortality showed a bell shaped curve. While total cholesterol of 280 or more was bad news as a risk factor, just as many people died whose total cholesterol was less than 140. These people were not dying of heart disease, rather than infections, cancer, and accidents. It is rather appalling that the gold standard of statin prescribing is to push down the total cholesterol to less than 140.
There are always adverse side effects when statins lower LDL cholesterol too much. This actually triggers cholesterol starvation in cells, which is anti-survival. Cell membranes become weaker and age faster. Nerve cells don’t transmit as well. Vitamin D levels go down. Sex drive is a thing of the past.
The new study is the first to discover and explain how low levels of cellular cholesterol, which clearly do occur when LDL levels are forced abnormally low by drugs, cause a break down in cellular regulation of growth which allows for the unchecked growth of cancer.
The researchers discovered that cholesterol within cells binds to something called cholesterol-binding proteins or ORPs. ORPs were thought to be involved in transport of cholesterol within the cell. The new research says otherwise, proving that ORPs regulate cell growth. If cholesterol does not bind to them, because the level is too low, then ORPs go wild and stimulate excessive cell growth. Cancer must have active ORPs to survive.
The results of this study predict that excessive lowering of cholesterol with statins helps cause cancer, especially in individuals with other risk factors for cancer. Big Pharma and the FDA don’t want to think about it and gleeful doctors will keep handing out statins like candy. When will this insanity ever stop?
There is a huge difference in your health between having good cholesterol numbers because you are healthy and having good numbers because you are drugged.
If you are looking for ways to naturally manage your cholesterol health please review an earlier in-depth article I wrote on this topic, The Five Key Things You Can Do to Lower LDL Cholesterol Healthfully.
More...