William Brock ND

Cholesterol (despite its bad reputation) is essential to the function of the human body. High Serum Cholesterol levels has been linked to cardiovascular disease, however, unnecessarily lowering Cholesterol below optimal levels can cause detrimental effects on the body as well.  Total Serum Cholesterol levels below 160 mg/dL are considered sub-optimal (persons with sub-optimal Cholesterol levels have a greater incidence of Stroke, Depression, Lung Ailments, some types of Cancer and Alcoholism).  

The reason many choose to lower cholesterol  naturally  is because of the harmful effects of the Statin Drugs (cholesterol lowering drugs). Baycol, a Statin drug produced by the Bayer corporation has been removed from the market due to the death of a number of people. This cholesterol lowering drug is not substantially different from other statin drugs. They all work in the same way, with some of the same dangerous side effects.

Statin drugs lower cholesterol by inhibiting HMG-CoA reductase, reducing the amount of cholesterol produced in the liver. The liver is where cholesterol comes from, very little comes from your diet. At the same time statin drugs are inhibiting the production of Cholesterol, they also stop the liver from synthesizing CoQ10. CoQ10 deficiency is linked to a couple of different kinds of heart disease, including congestive heart failure. So, if I were taking a Statin drug for high cholesterol I would take 100 mg of CoQ10 per day. This will prevent a CoQ10 deficiency caused by these cholesterol lowering drugs. I would also take some Silymarin (Milk Thistle Extract) to protect the liver from the damage caused by the statin drugs.

I hear it said all the time “I have high cholesterol so my doctor put me on a low cholesterol diet and it didn’t work, so he put me on a cholesterol lowering drug.” That is because low cholesterol diets don’t work. Cholesterol in your diet has only a  minimal effect on your cholesterol levels.

Where do cholesterol and triglycerides come from? Triglycerides only come from three  places. It is simple to trace triglyceride metabolism. Triglycerides come from refined sugar,  excess carbohydrates in general, and alcohol. Triglycerides in the blood do not come from eating fat. If you are on a low fat diet trying to lower Triglycerides it is not going to work if you are substituting sugar and simple carbohydrates for fat.  I am not suggesting that anyone go on a diet high in saturated animal fat or trans fats. Both of these fats, in excess, can have  negative effects on the cardiovascular system in other ways. High cholesterol does not come from eggs or any other dietary source of cholesterol, it is manufactured in your body, primarily in your liver. The body increases its production of endogenous Cholesterol if dietary Cholesterol is deficient. The body decreases its production of endogenous Cholesterol if dietary Cholesterol is excessive. Even if massive amounts of dietary cholesterol are consumed the body normally reduces the amount of Cholesterol absorbed from the diet and increases its excretion of Cholesterol via bile.

Refined sugar and the milk protein, casein, elevate the cholesterol levels in laboratory animals and humans. The laboratory's that make the Statin Drugs know what causes High Cholesterol, they are just not telling you and they are not telling your doctor. We have evidence of that in the “Journal of Laboratory  Animal Science” Issue 45 number 6 page 663, December 1995, work done by Dupont Merck Pharmaceutical. This is a laboratory that test drugs on lab animals before it is tested on humans. They publish in this journal what has been found to work in their laboratories. When testing a drug to lower cholesterol on a lab animal, first you must find a way to give laboratory animals high cholesterol. They did not use high cholesterol and high fat diets, they do not work to raise cholesterol. What was written up in this journal is what did raise cholesterol in these animals. I quote from the Journal, “several investigators have reported that feeding a semi-synthetic diet of casein (protein from cows milk) and dextrose (sugar) to New Zealand white rabbits will increase the total serum cholesterol concentration principally through the beta lipid protein fractions (the bad cholesterol) thereby creating a useful model for Arteriosclerosis research.”