How To Lower Cholesterol Naturally Still Eat Steak & Never Need Cholesterol Drugs

How To Lower Cholesterol Naturally And Still Eat Steak & Why Cholesterol Lowering Drugs Are Almost Never Justified by Russell J. Martino, Ph.D.  The Voice Of Health

A rigidly enforced, low fat, low cholesterol diet can result in lower total cholesterol, but that kind of diet is causes a disproportionate drop in the “good” HDL cholesterol in relationship to the extra sticky “bad” LDL cholesterol and this incresaes disease risk.

It has been repeatedly demonstrated in research that higher total cholesterol with a good HDL to LDL ratio is much healthier than lower total cholesterol with a poor HDL to LDL ratio.

This means that while low fat, low cholesterol diets may result in lower total cholesterol, following such a diet frequently INCREASES the risk of heart disease.

Even though total cholesterol drops, disease risk increases because the level of the "good" HDL that transports sticky LDL cholesterol OUT of the blood drops too low compared to the reduction in the sticky LDL cholesterol and when HDL is too low in relationship to LDL, the blood flows thick with extra sticky LDL cholesterol that can build up in the tissues and arteries.

From Understanding Cholesterol Part One, you discovered that a diet high in carbohydrates stimulates excess insulin to flood into the blood stream and cause the cells to make cholesterol internally.

Given this reality of human biochemistry it’s clear that a diet high in sugar or carbohydrate is the primary cause of cholesterol building up in the blood. This happens regardless of how much or how little cholesterol containing foods you eat along the way.

To put it another way, if you went on a 100% cholesterol free diet for one year, at the end of that year the maximum possible drop in your cholesterol would be 20%. 

Likewise, if you went on a 100% cholesterol only diet for one year, at the end of the year the maximum possible increase in your cholesterol would be 20%.

While 20% is no small amount, wouldn’t you agree that 80% is a lot more?

The problem with cutting cholesterol containing foods from your diet is that you miss out on many healthy, delicious, nutritious foods that ultimately have very little affect on your total cholesterol.

If you never take another bite food containing cholesterol in your life and instead eat only bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, sweets and so on; there’s a 100% certainty your cholesterol and triglycerides would be sky high.

In other words, eat the steak or don’t, but either way if you load up on bread, rice, potatoes and desserts, you’re destined to win the high cholesterol lottery and be awarded a lifetime prescription for dangerous cholesterol lowering drugs. Look honey! I’m a winner!

When food crosses your lips there are only two possible metabolic outcomes.

Depending on your food choices either insulin OR glucagon becomes the dominant hormone in your system for the next several hours.

If insulin climbs in the metabolic drivers seat, you make and store fat at a rapid rate and your cells make cholesterol internally. If glucagon takes control you burn stored fat and your cells harvest cholesterol directly from your blood.

Ultimately this is simple stuff! Since glucagon gives you desirable metabolic results and insulin gives you undesirable ones, the question becomes; what kind diet puts glucagon in the metabolic driver’s seat?

For years we’ve been told eat low fat diets and pile on the carbs because they are low in fat and provide lots of energy.  It turns out that following this advice literally guarantees higher cholesterol. 

The ever-worsening tragedy of obesity, diabetes, and increasing heart disease has proven the advice to radically eliminate all fat from you diet to be astonishingly bad advice and it’s bad regardless of who gives it simply because the facts of human biochemistry are what they are and that’s that.

Here are the facts on carbhydrates and cholesterol so you can decide for yourself.

• Numerous published research studies have shown that a diet low in refined carbohydrates and higher in naturally occurring fats, like the fat in milk, cheese, butter, and meat, not only lower total cholesterol, but result in much healthier HDL to LDL ratios than are attained with diets low in fat and cholesterol.
• Reducing carbohydrates is vitally important because carbohydrates cause excess insulin and excess insulin causes most of the problems.
• If you reduce carbs, you reduce insulin; if you reduce insulin you INCREASE the glucagon; and if you increase glucagon you burn fat, lower triglycerides, lower your total cholesterol, and improve your HDL to LDL ratio.

In other words, pull this off and you will literally improve your health in practically every way measurable.

This is quite a turn of events.

For years we’ve been told to cut the fat, beware cholesterol containing fooda and pile on the carbs because they are low in fat and provide lots of energy.

Metabolically speaking, eating this way produces the exact opposite result.  Cut naturally occuring fat out of your diet, load up on high carb foods and besides gaining weight, your cholesterol and triglycerides will, in all probability, increase dramatically.

Clearly the ever-worsening tragedy of obesity, diabetes, and increasing heart disease has proven this advice to be astonishingly wrong and it is astonishingly wrong regardless of who gives it because the proven facts of human biochemistry do not depend on anyon’s opinion.

The new advice avoids "popular wisdom," "common knowledge," “standard practice” or anyone’s "opinion".  The new advice is based instead on a more complete understanding of medical physiology, cellular biology, and the human endocrine system.

Now for the final question concerning metabolism.

How do you put glucagon securely in the metabolic driver’s seat and begin to enjoy the wonderful health benefits gained from establishing the proper insulin/glucagon balance in your body.

The answer in a word is PROTEIN.

Protein provides significant nutrition without causing a rise in blood sugar, but the key is not just getting protein, the key is getting protein WITHOUT excess carbohydrates.

With or without protein, excess carbohydrates cause a sharp rise in blood sugar and that produces an insulin response, which leads to fat production and storage, high triglycerides, and increased cholesterol.

When you enjoy a delicious protein meal with minimal carbohydrates coming primarily from fresh green vegetables or fresh seasonal fruit, you set up the IDEAL conditions to establish a perfect metabolic relationship between insulin and glucagon.

To help clarify the effect food has on the insulin-glucagon relationship, consider the following facts.

• A normal healthy person has slightly less than one single teaspoon of glucose circulating in their entire blood stream at any single time.
• Molecularly, carbohydrates are nothing more than several different kinds of sugar linked together.
• Once eaten, these sugars are quickly broken down into glucose which instantly enters your blood and causes blood sugar to rise rapidly, just like eating candy does.

Since insulin production is the natural, healthy response to lower rapidly rising blood sugar, it’s easy to understand that consuming sugar, or carbohydrates that break down into sugar, causes a quick rise in insulin.

How many carbohydrates does it take to produce an insulin response?

To answer this keep in mind that 5 grams of carbohydrate equals approximately 1 teaspoon of sugar, which is close to the normal amount of sugar found in the blood.

Now, a single can of one of the better-known brands of soft drinks lists 39 grams of carbohydrates in the nutrition information panel printed on the can.

Divide 39 total carbohydrate grams by 5 grams per teaspoon and you quickly discover that this single can of soda water contains nearly 8 teaspoons of sugar that will actually enter your blood stream.

Since 1 teaspoon of sugar is the normal healthy amount contained in the blood, 8 times that amount is clearly too much, which means if you drink that soft drink a quick rise in blood sugar and a quick insulin response to lower the rising blood sugar is absolutely guaranteed.

How high do insulin levels climb in order to reduce rising blood sugar?

According to the Textbook of Medical Physiology, insulin secreted to bring down rising blood sugar rises dramatically within 15 minutes and peaks 2-3 hours later in ranges that are from 10 to 25 times above normal, and insulin levels remain elevated for hours.

Now that you understand that once stimulated, insulin levels stay elevated for several hours, it’s easy to understand how eating sugary foods or high carbohydrate meals and snacks throughout the day essentially insures that insulin stays abnormally high all day long and that glucagon is left entirely out of the metabolic picture.

The key to activating glucagon and putting it in the metabolic driver’s seat is to eat meals with plenty of protein and, ideally, carbohydrates that come almost entirely from fresh vegetables.

Like cholesterol, as long as you avoid the chemically altered fats that produce dangerous transfatty acids, dietary fat consumption is essentially a non-issue because, much like protein, natural fat is turned into structural raw material needed for cell growth and maintenance.

Keep in mind that your body contains something on the order of a hundred trillion cells and each and every one of them is made from and contains both protein and fat.

Not one single cell in your body is made from carbohydrates. Protein and fat consumption is essential to life. Without a regular supply of protein and fat your health would fail and you’d eventually die.

Carbohydrate consumption is not essential to life. Of course some carbohydrates are healthy and very good for you, but if you never ate another carbohydrate in your life it would not make you sick and you could easily be as healthy as anyone who ever walked the planet.

There is not a single disease associated with a lack of carbohydrates. 

No diseases are associated with lack of carbohydrates because your body can instantly make all the glucose it needs directly from protein and fat. The important point is that to keep excess insulin to a minimum and insure you have enough glucagon in your system, you need meals that contain protein and that are pointedly low in processed and starchy carbohydrates like bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, corn, sweet drinks, added sugar and so on.

This next paragraph contains a FABULOUS weight loss tip!

Eating in a way that avoids the production of excess insulin is the single most important thing you can do to lose weight easily, keep it off permanently and improve your health literally in every way measurable.

Excess insulin is a serious threat to your health. Excess insulin is your enemy and excess insulin is produced in your body primarily as a direct result of your food choices. Excess insulin leads to higher triglycerides, higher cholesterol, poor HDL to LDL ratios, higher blood pressure, excess fat production and storage, obesity, insulin resistance, and dramatically increased risk for diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

Glucagon is your friend and enjoying protein meals with a minimum of processed carbohydrates activates glucagon in your system.

Glucagon is the hormone that causes you to burn stored body fat for energy. When glucagon is in the metabolic driver’s seat it is amazingly easy to establish and maintain your ideal healthy body weight ESPECIALLY when you are getting the essential nutrients. There is an increasing awareness in the medical community that total cholesterol levels are not as significant a predictor of heart disease as they once believed to be as long as HDL and LDL are in proper relationship.

Of course you’d never believe that watching drug commercials on television but the facts remain… excluding the possibility of a malfunctioning liver or some rare genetic malady… NO ONE needs drugs to lower cholesterol.

There is a significant and growing amount of research that clearly shows cholesterol does not cause heart disease and that all the attention on cholesterol has been nothing but a big mistake.

Research now confirms that INFLAMMATION, (c-reactive protein: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-reactive_protein ), is the primary culprit in heart disease and besides that… we’ve known for decades that the dietary consumption of cholesterol containing foods has only a minor effect in determining total cholesterol levels.

There is more coming on Cholesterol so if the subject interests you be sure and subscribe to the Blog so you’ll get the information hot off the press.

Having great health is a choice you can make I’ll help you make you make it every single day!

Until Next Post… All The Best To You And Yours! Russell J. Martino, Ph.D Bringing You Health… At The Speed Of Life!

This is a small sample of the practical, usable information in 5 Steps To Optimal Health, a program thousands have benefited from since 1999 and I have updated every year since. Learn more here: http://www.5StepsToOptimalHealth.com

Written by Dr. Russell J. Martino, Ph.D
The Voice Of Health
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