This is a prototype/except from an incomplete article.
There is a huge amount of evidence to suggest that cholesterol is actually linked to heart disease which has not been debunked. In addition to that, the logic of why cholesterol consumption leads to poor health has never been disproven. That is to say, that cholesterol is made of little waxy, gooey, sticky particles that clog the arteries restricting blood flow, and then white blood cells come to the rescue, attempting to engulf the particles of fat, but if there is too much fat around it causes congestion and opens the possibility of a rupture in a dose-dependent way. Fats cause problems in our sewer piping as well! That’s why we’re told to pour oil into the bin rather than down the drain. There are reams of population studies showing that groups that consume more cholesterol have more heart disease, but these are often dismissed with the immortal phrase “correlation does not prove causation” – which is true insofar as it goes, but in order for there to be causation there would have to be a correlation, right? Another thing they like to say is “vegetarians/vegans generally eat better so of course they have less heart disease,” but that just doesn’t make sense in a paradigm where carbs are the problem – because they eat way more carbs than meat eaters!
The fall back position is just to deny outright that cholesterol consumption increases LDL (low-density lipoprotein – sometimes known as “bad” cholesterol) and that that is just a government myth, but 395 controlled feeding trials demonstrated that increased saturated fat consumption raises cholesterol. An independent body of scientists known as the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition looked at 47 systematic meta-analyses and concluded that higher saturated fat consumption was linked to a rise in blood cholesterol and that higher intakes of saturated fat are associated with increased risk of disease. Alas, I somehow feel that regardless of the number and quality of studies, these will nonetheless just be dismissed by people who don’t want to believe the results.
Yes, it’s nice to think you can enjoy all your favourite foods like bacon and eggs fried in butter with a clear conscience but that won’t make them healthy foods. Perhaps this is simply what people prefer to believe is true, and there will always be opportunities to go viral by telling people what they want to hear.
At the moment, the data says that vegetarians are at a lower risk of 24 out of 25 of the leading causes of death in the USA – and the leading causes of death in the UK – and vegans are at an even lower risk. What’s more it’s been proven that 12 of these can actually be reversed on a wholefoods plant-based diet. Yes, 12 of the leading causes of death can be reversed by the cessation of the consumption of animal products. If it’s carbs that cause diabetes, then how come vegans – who eat more carbohydrates – are at a 78% lower total risk of diabetes? Just look at the stats! There are stacks of studies where they take people with clogged arteries and put them on wholefood plant-based diets, and watch their arterial health and the health of their heart return to normal. I mean stacks of them. For example, Dr. Esselstyn’s trial on people with advanced cardiovascular disease showed rapid artery clearing in people who adopted a whole-food vegan diet, and about 100 times lower incidence of heart attack and stroke in those that stuck on the diet compared to those that didn’t over a 12-year period.
We our told that our bodies evolved in the tropics – where over half the trees have edible fruits on them – and so the real ancestral diet was one of predominantly fruit and soft leaves. We have almost identical small intestines to chimpanzees and bonobos (95% vegetarian) and gorillas (100% vegetarian). What is different is that those animals have bigger colons which help them break down really rugged fibre from leaves which I agree with the keto people are probably not good for us (sorry kale-eaters.) Point is: sugar (especially from fruit) is our natural food source. Ketosis is meant to be the back-up system.
In all the blue zones (where people live longest) animal products make up about 5-10% of the diet (hmmm, funny, about the same as chimpanzees and bonobos). So it’s not necessary to take the extreme measure of ceasing eating animal products to attain the benefits of eating less of them. Simply substitute animal products for fruits and vegetables. Plastic vegetarian “foods” don’t count, and grains are not the same as fruits and vegetables, many grains have their own attendant problems.
