Cholesterol Myths Examined:

My grandmother died at 96 with monstrous cholesterol. She always had it, never did anything about it and was beautifully healthy until the day she died. Her body simply wore out from good use: rode hard and put away wet. We should all be so lucky.

Call me an hysterical conspiracy theorist (you won't be the first), but I have come to believe the "danger of cholesterol" is a myth made up by Big Pharma to create a need for statins, cholesterol lowering drugs. At least, I'm rational, eh?

I'm also convinced that what we really have to fear is high triglycerides. You get high triglycerides from eating too much sugar--including raw honey, btw--as opposed to the myth that you get blood cholesterol from eating cholesterol:

2. Dietary cholesterol is poorly absorbed, 50 percent at best (Mary Enig, PhD; Michael I. Gurr, PhD, lipid biochemists). According to these lipid biochemists, the more cholesterol you eat, the less cholesterol you absorb. Since our bodies must synthesize between 1200 and 1800 mg of cholesterol daily, why is there any dietary limit?

Recently added to my new belief structure is that sugar, in any form, is the biggest danger to one's health. From Dr. Simoncini who has deduced that cancer is simply a fungus (and a fungus feeds on sugar) to the recently produced Sugar: The Bitter Truth, it seems more and more an undeniable fact. This from 25 Reasons:

19. The particularly harmful carbohydrates - sugar and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) - are not singled out in the proposed 2010 Dietary Guidelines. Dr. Joanne Slavin defended the use of HFCS by saying “a calorie is a calorie is a calorie.” She chairs the Carbohydrate Committee and her testimony (Meeting 1) suggests she is not concerned about excess sugar and high fructose corn syrup in the American diet. She works for the University of Minnesota, and the U of M receives substantial financial support from Cargill (and General Mills). Was her recommendation not to single out high fructose corn syrup a serious conflict of interest?

Clearly, the road to Vibrant Health does not include sugar. And does include cholesterol-rich food. Plus:

23. The simple explanation for why Americans have fattened:  hyperinsulinism. Insulin is the fat storage hormone. When insulin levels are elevated – either chronically or after a meal – we make and store fat and then lock it up in adipose tissue. When fat is locked up, it is not available as a fuel to the trillions of cells in the body. Hunger is the result. By stimulating insulin levels, carbohydrates make us hungry and fat. High circulating insulin - in response to excess dietary carbohydrates - is the root cause of weight gain and obesity and all chronic disease associated with elevated blood sugar and insulin levels.

Count me in!

P.S. Quotes are from this article by Alan Watts, the Cereal Killer. Good reading.

P.S.S. For more interesting information on statin drugs, read Mercola's The Truth About Statin Drugs.