Your Unstoppable Heart – Men’s Health Gets It Right!
Every now and then, the magazine, Men’s Health manages to come up with an article that can be truly life-changing. The first one was The Cure for Diabetes which is probably the one article that truly set me on my way to great health. They had another one which was nearly as good, called The Thin Man’s Diabetes. These articles practically told us in no uncertain terms how sugar caused diabetes. It is vital that you read both articles so that you don’t get fooled into thinking that diabetes only happens to fat people. You should also know that folks with diabetes have a much greater risk for heart disease and all other chronic diseases of civilization.
Well, Men’s Health is at it again. It’s kind of sad that the most important article in the magazine is all the way at the back on page 120. In fact, if you read the cover of the February 2010 issue, you will not find even a headline pointing to this article, yet it is the most important article that many of you have ever read.
I’ve written before about the great, Dr. Robert Krauss and how he took the baton from Dr. Gofman, of the atomic bomb project, and found out what really goes on with cholesterol in our bodies. He used Gofman’s ultracentrifuge and discovered some seven subclasses of cholesterol. Simply put, the science of cholesterol has been oversimplified so much that it no longer makes sense to people and has caused untold suffering and make many people very rich. Most people we know are taking statin drugs based on a truly meaningless number in their lipid profile.
So what exactly is so earth-shattering in this magazine? If you are a regular reader of this blog, then you will most likely not learn anything new in this article. For the rest of you, it’s worth a read. If your doctor says you have elevated LDL cholesterol, you need to know that only a portion of LDL cholesterol is actually dangerous. The so-called “healthy eating” — a diet high in carbohydrates will actually increase the number of “dangerous” LDL particles. Two laboratory machines have played a role in perhaps the greatest medical misadventure of our time: the indictment of a villain – LDL cholesterol – with the ultimate crime of the heart, coronary heart disease. The article describes them in detail and it’s quite easy to understand why this happened. Unfortunately, is spawned the drug companies to create drugs based on the faulty LDL hypothesis of heart disease.
So we currently test for a number that tells us less about our health than we think it does and then we busily (and expensively) medicate it downward to our detriment. As I posted recently, the majority of heart attack patients were not at risk according to the current guidelines for cholesterol. People with low cholesterol actually have more heart attacks than those with higher numbers, simply going by the lipid profile.
So how do we get this right? First of all, you must focus on only two numbers in the lipid profile. The first is HDL. It should be above 40. The second is the number of triglycerides. If it is less than 150, you are doing well, although the lower the number the better. Those on zero-carb diets such as my own typically post very low triglyceride numbers with only two digits Women typically have higher HDL than men and this is very normal.
As far as LDL, you must know that there is a difference in LDL cholesterol and LDL. LDL cholesterol is a calculated value based on the other numbers in your lipid profile. This calculated number is not the actual number of particles. LDL refers to the actual lipoprotein. When we discuss LDL, we are talking about the lipoprotein itself and its contents. There are fat and cholesterol particles on the LDL and their size is the ultimate determinant.
Two people can have identical LDL numbers but one will be healthy and the other will not be. It all depends on the particle composition. Are they large and fluffy or are they small and dense? This makes all the difference. Read the article to understand why there is a difference and what causes this difference. This is very easy to test and easy to understand. If you eat carbohydrates, your LDL will come down but your particles will become small and dense. If you eat a diet high in saturated fat as I do, your HDL and LDL will rise. The rise in HDL is precisely what you want. The rise in LDL is also precisely what you want because the only reason the number goes higher is because the particles become large and fluffy which is a good thing.
Finally, there are three tests which will accurately measure your risk. If you are concerned, you should consider at least one of them. The first is the LDL-S2GGE test. The second is the VAP test, and the third is the NMR Lipoprofile test. I have written before about the VAP test. These tests will all measure your particle size and inform you whether you need to eat more like me, or continue eating your low-fat, high carbohydrate diet.
I sincerely hope you choose to make the right choice.
Share on Twitter4 Responses
Subscribe to comments via RSS
Subscribe to comments via RSS
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
on December 20, 2009 at 7:25 am
Permalink
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today. Here’s a quick excerptThey had another one which was nearly as good, called The Thin Man’s bDiabetes/b. These articles practically told us in no uncertain terms how bsugar/b caused bdiabetes/b. It is vital that you read both articles so that you don’t get fooled into … [...]
on December 20, 2009 at 8:43 am
Permalink
[...] the original post: Zeroing In On Health – The Blog! » Your Unstoppable Heart – Men's … diabetes, first-one, Health, magazine, one-article, probably-the-one, the-magazine Leave a [...]
on December 20, 2009 at 8:53 am
Permalink
[...] Read more: Zeroing In On Health – The Blog! » Your Unstoppable Heart – Men's … [...]
on December 20, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Permalink
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by George Bright, Jim Black. Jim Black said: Zeroing In On Health – The Blog! » Your Unstoppable Heart – Men's …: Your Unstoppable Heart – Men's Health… http://bit.ly/7H9kGn [...]