So the great cholesterol debate rumbles on. After many years of being condemned as devil spawn, dairy products are now enjoying a better reputation as medical opinion shifts with the wind.
I was in my late forties when my doctor decided my cholesterol level was too high, and put me on a diet.
After three months it hadn’t changed one jot! “You must be one of these people who makes a lot of cholesterol naturally – it’s nothing to do with your diet,” she said. So, the ubiquitous statins were prescribed, I went back to eating everything I wanted, and never looked back.
Now, according to the latest medical research, eating cholesterol-rich food is not dangerous, and doesn’t actually raise blood cholesterol. Apparently evidence now shows there is no appreciable relationship between consumption of cholesterol, and the amount of cholesterol in our blood.
These new findings state that the liver makes around 85% of the cholesterol we need to function, and that if we eat too much cholesterol our liver compensates by reducing its own production.
Even more contentious, is this statement from the report’s author: “Research confirms that if you have a high cholesterol level you will live longer.” The report also says: “all-cause mortality is highest in the lowest cholesterol group,” and that “elderly people with the highest cholesterol level have the highest survival rates.”
Just what the...? Oh, I give up. But until my doctor suggests I come off statins, I intend to continue with them, thank you very much. Even more so now I’m 60 and no longer pay for my prescriptions. I’ve forked out for them for all these years, damned if I’m giving them up now they’re free!
But then, thinking about it, my dear old grandma drank copious amounts of full-fat milk and ate copious amounts of cheese…and lived until just a fortnight before what would have been her 100th birthday. Oh, I think I’ll toss a coin. Heads, stay on statins, tails, come off ‘em immediately.
I was in my late forties when my doctor decided my cholesterol level was too high, and put me on a diet.
After three months it hadn’t changed one jot! “You must be one of these people who makes a lot of cholesterol naturally – it’s nothing to do with your diet,” she said. So, the ubiquitous statins were prescribed, I went back to eating everything I wanted, and never looked back.
Now, according to the latest medical research, eating cholesterol-rich food is not dangerous, and doesn’t actually raise blood cholesterol. Apparently evidence now shows there is no appreciable relationship between consumption of cholesterol, and the amount of cholesterol in our blood.
These new findings state that the liver makes around 85% of the cholesterol we need to function, and that if we eat too much cholesterol our liver compensates by reducing its own production.
Even more contentious, is this statement from the report’s author: “Research confirms that if you have a high cholesterol level you will live longer.” The report also says: “all-cause mortality is highest in the lowest cholesterol group,” and that “elderly people with the highest cholesterol level have the highest survival rates.”
Just what the...? Oh, I give up. But until my doctor suggests I come off statins, I intend to continue with them, thank you very much. Even more so now I’m 60 and no longer pay for my prescriptions. I’ve forked out for them for all these years, damned if I’m giving them up now they’re free!
But then, thinking about it, my dear old grandma drank copious amounts of full-fat milk and ate copious amounts of cheese…and lived until just a fortnight before what would have been her 100th birthday. Oh, I think I’ll toss a coin. Heads, stay on statins, tails, come off ‘em immediately.
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