Jeesh.

I'm not an expert but I know that whole food pl;ant based diets are proven to not only prevent but actually reverse plaque related heart disease issues. If I needed to get my cholesterol lower, I would do a no oil or animal products diet for a month and see how it effected my numbers. I've ate that way for 3 months before. I don't know about alcohol but I can't imagine it would be good for you.

It’s easy to lose weight when you don’t have kids around.
Most of y’all are older then me and kids are already
Out of the house so props to those who can. But
With two young uns around it’s whatever is quickest
And easiest. Maybe one day.

I haven't heard any information on LDL protecting arteries from damage. I'll research it though. The LDL plaque build up does cause damage. The artery has 3 layers, an inner layer called the intima, a muscular layer, and an outer layer called adventitia. The LDL builds up between the intima and the muscular layer causing a narrowing in the artery over time. Calcium can also be deposited in the plaque which can be seen by CT or on X-ray. When the inner layer ruptures the body's natural response is to form a clot at the injury site which can quickly occlude the already narrowed artery causing an acute blockage, or heart attack if it is a coronary artery, stroke if it is the brain.

As for the sugar causing damage to the arteries........ High blood sugar, diabetes, if not controlled does contribute to arterial disease. It causes an inflammation process that hardens the arteries and can cause the liver to dump more harmful fats into the bloodstream which leads to potentially more plaque build up in the arteries.

The hormone stuff I will have to research, not my area of expertise. LOL

David

Alcohol in moderation shouldn't be a problem unless you have been diagnosed with a cardiomyopathy, or weak heart pumping function. Our patients that have that condition are told to abstain from any alcohol.

David

Even if you could cut out 100% of the fat from your diet, your body, (liver) is still going to produce cholesterol. If you are genetically predisposed to high cholesterol, you still might not get your numbers to an acceptable range. I can recall reading an article in Reader's Digest years ago about a man who was a vegetarian and a triathlete, the epitome of health and had coronary artery disease to the point that he had to have bypass surgery. Genetics is the biggest player.

David

There's a lot more going on than we realize,or even guess,is what I've come to believe. The more I learn,the more I realize I don't know. That inflammation deal is very significant though. From what I've studied it seems that most of our major diseases are directly related to inflammation. I've come to believe or theorize in my mind anyway that our major problem dietary speaking is our constant consumption of calories,high sugar calories in particular. We have constant release of insulin to deal with it and we become insulin resistant as well as having the inflammatory response from just a constant bombardment of calories

How many Americans do you suppose go even 2 waking hours a day without consuming calories in some form? Sometimes we might even wake during the night and grab a drink of something other than water.

Even if it was,I think more people would be helped more by leading a lifestyle as if genetics didn't matter,than by ignoring all aspects except meds,which is exactly how most people look at it. People don't say"I've got bad genes so I have to eat perfect all the time." They say,"I've got diabetes in my family so I have to take this medicine every day to deal with it." I know a bunch of people who wouldn't need their meds any more if they would control their diets and lifestyle.

The world as we know it revolves around chemistry and the human body is no exception. The biochemistry of the body is incredibly complex. The longer I am in the medical field the more I realize this. The effects of inflammation on the body can be severe and can occur with any body tissue. Some of it is autoimmune and some is certainly the crap we stuff in our mouths and expose ourselves to in the environment. I'm pretty sure refined sugar is the devil.

David

I would definitely agree.Once I went meat only for a little bit and then one at a time introduced foods back into my diet to see how they effected me.Food allergies triggering autoimmune can be huge for some people and they are extremely difficult to pin point sometimes because in some cases you might not have a reaction for 48 hours after eating something.

It's true that a pretty big portion of the population will not make lifestyle changes to help their medical issues. Most people think "I'll just take a pill to fix this". I'm certain that is not how it is supposed to work. The pharma companies are smiling all the way to the bank....

David

Just look over the past several decades at the news reports

Butter is bad for you. Eat margarine
Margarine bad for you eat real butter

Americans eat too much salt It’s bad for you
Americans eat about the right amount of salt

There are numerous reports like that

It’s no wonder most don’t know what is correct.

I can google a question and get various answers
I get emails on nutrition for diabetes and some contradicts prior emails.

It use to be called headlines and now it's called click bait. You can quickly weed out the unreliable info if you start looking at the source of those claims. Many times the source is a 6 month study of 200 people or close to something like that. All that kind of study proves is that you can prove just about anything if you skew the data in your favor. There are plenty of studies on nutrition that have been running since the 1970's involving large groups of people. Just like everything you want to really know about though,you have to really study it rather than just reading headlines.

For the majority of people, dietary cholesterol does not raise serum cholesterol. That was a lie created in part by the sugar industry.

Carbs, processed sugars, processed fats, corn syrup drives high triglycerides and lipoproteins follow.

If you have baseline labs, try eating a truly low carb diet, with proteins, oils, eggs, nuts and lots of green vegetables. No bread, potatoes, rice, juice, fruit, etc. You'll still be getting carbs but the small amount bound to fiber makes it less absorbable.

Go back to your doc after 2 months and ask them to do labs. If you've been good in following that diet, you and your doc will be amazed at the results.

I appreciate that. Had someone tell me I couldn’t eat certain veggies like raw carrots as snacks and egg yolks along with a few other things.

That was absolutely true in my case but I will say this as a caveat to your info. If you’re going to eat a high fat diet like keto you’d better be strict or your cholesterol will go up. After 4 months on Keto my triglycerides had dropped from 287 to 117. My total cholesterol was unchanged. My LDL’s were lower and my HDL’s were higher. Everything was better. The next check up was 6 months later. It was in January. From Christmas through New Years I was not strict on carb count. I had several “cheat” days meaning that I ate deserts several times, biscuits for breakfast, etc. At my July checkup my total cholesterol was up around 30 points and my Triglycerides were back up to around 175.

For those who think the traditional food pyramid is the best way to eat, what else do you trust the government with?

That makes sense and seems to correlate the info I've been studying. From my studies,if you eat fats with carbs the body uses the carbs first and stores the fats. I transition my diet every few months from high fat low carb to high carb low fat. I think it gives me opportunity to vary my diet,get better nutrition and train my body to deal with both nutrition sources. I just don't mix fats and carbs and the carbs I eat are non processed like fruits,grains,beans and such. I don't know if it's the best way or if I am a little obsessed about gaining weight and so stay so strict but I've been able to maintain my weight and actually continue to gain lean muscle for more than a year.

Nothing.

Yep, fats + carbs = death, sometimes slow, sometimes fast.

Choose one or the other. I am pretty sensitive to dairy fat for some reason. I figured out I can't eat a bunch of high fat dairy or my lpla spikes. That isn't the case for everyone, and I'm probably a freak, but I can eat all the olive oil and coconut butter I want.

Everyone needs to push their doc and make them order labs as you develop sustained changes in your diet.

R H, I’ve thought about doing 3 months of low fat just to throw my body a curve ball. It would also give me an opportunity to eat some things I miss eating.