Contrary to popular belief, cholesterol is an essential nutrient that our body needs to function well. Unfortunately, this valuable substance has gotten a very bad reputation over the past 6 decades, and most people think that it has no use to the body. In fact, we have been told for decades that it causes heart disease and to avoid all sources of cholesterol like butter and eggs. An entire industry of low-fat dairy and yolk-less “eggs” was formed and many people avoided foods that are high in fat.
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Did you know that most ingested cholesterol is poorly absorbed by the body? However, the body compensates any absorption of additional cholesterol by reducing cholesterol production. For these reasons, cholesterol in food, seven to ten hours after ingestion, has little, if any, effect on concentrations of cholesterol in the blood. So this means that you can eat foods that are high in cholesterol (like eggs, avocados, raw nuts and seeds) without having any fear that it will affect your cholesterol level.
Cholesterol is Good for You. Really? Tell Me More.
This sounds totally absurd and goes against what we have always been taught, but cholesterol is indeed beneficial to our bodies. How? You might ask. Well the following are some of its benefits:
- It is important for the building and maintenance of the walls of our cells. There is proof that cholesterol is necessary for the avoidance of leaky gut syndrome.
- It is used to insulate our cells.
- The liver, which is one of the main organs in our body that produces cholesterol, uses it to make bile, which interestingly enough, is needed to digest fats.
- In the presence of sunlight, our bodies change cholesterol into Vitamin D.
- It is needed for the creation of important hormones, including sex hormones.
- It helps the immune system by fighting inflammation.
- It helps in the absorption of fats and fat soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K.
- It serves as an antioxidant in the body.
- It helps repair damaged tissue caused by inflammation.
Cholesterol is so valuable that without it we would die and ONLY recently it has been correlated to longevity.
The True Cause of Heart Attacks
For as long as we can remember, scientific articles have shown that there are several risk factors for heart disease, like high cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes, atherosclerosis and so on. These risk factors appear to speed up the development of heart disease. However, there is a missing link to this health issue that you may have never heard of till today.
Atherosclerosis, the underlying process of heart attacks and strokes, is generally not caused by high cholesterol. It is caused by structural weaknesses in the walls of blood vessels due to vitamin C deficiency.
When a blood vessel is deficient in vitamin C, scurvy-like symptoms in the form of inflammation occur in the artery walls. When one has sufficient vitamin C, the body will be able to produce collagen that is required to patch up the inflamed area. If this does not happen, the body sends substantial amounts of cholesterol to repair the damaged area, thus causing a thickening of the arteries. This is one example of how the body uses cholesterol to repair tissue damage caused by inflammation.
To put it in simple terms, without inflammation being present in the body, cholesterol will not accumulate in the wall of the blood vessel. When a blood test shows high levels of cholesterol, it only means that the body is inflamed and the liver is overworking itself to produce sufficient amounts of cholesterol to reduce the inflammation. Reduce the inflammation and your liver will thank you for it.
Biggest Culprits of Inflammation
What are the biggest culprits of chronic inflammation? They are the over consumption of highly processed simple carbohydrates (sugar, flour and all the products made from them), low fat diet and omega-6 vegetable oils like soybean, corn, sunflower, canola, etc. that are found in many processed foods.
Imagine rubbing a brush repeatedly over soft skin until it becomes red and sore. Keep doing this several times a day, every day for 5 years. You will end up having a bleeding, swollen infected area that becomes worse over time. This is a good way to visualise the effects of inflammation in the body due to the above mentioned diet.
Change Begins with You
At the end of the day, each of us is responsible for our own health. It is time for us to make the right choices, on a daily basis, to reduce inflammation as much as possible. This can be done by making some dietary and lifestyle changes.
The following are a few pointers that will help you to achieve this:
- Adopt an Anti-Inflammatory Diet
There are certain foods that are commonly known to increase inflammation in the body. If your cholesterol levels are elevated, it is probably a good idea to avoid the following foods:
- Fried foods
- Refined flours
- Refined sugars
- Alcoholic beverages
- Animal products that contain hormones and antibiotics
- Artificial sweeteners
- Processed foods (i.e. biscuits, chips, hot dogs, etc.)
- Foods cooked in refined cooking oil (such as soy, corn, canola, etc.)
- Trans fats in margarine, vegetable shortening and all products listing them as ingredients or made with partially hydrogenated oils of any kind.
Eat more of the following foods:
- Green leafy vegetables & fruits – If you struggle to consume whole portions of vegetables and fruits, simply use NewLife™’s Alpha Juicer to make a nutrient dense, deliciously tasting juice.
Alternatively, NewLife™’s Super Green Food Plus and Spirulina are excellent supplements to get more greens into your diet. They are concentrated sources of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, enzymes, chlorophyll and powerful antioxidants.
- Potassium rich foods – Health experts recommend an intake of at least 5 times more potassium than sodium. To reconstruct healthy cells, we must replenish potassium levels in the body. Besides cutting down salt intake and taking more high potassium food, supplementing with natural, specially formulated potassium such as NewLife™’s K-Salt is the perfect antidote to reduce inflammation.
- Extra virgin coconut oil & omega-3 fatty acids – In many recent studies, the lauric acid in virgin coconut oil was found to reduce inflammation in cells. NewLife™’s Extra Virgin Coconut Oil is cold pressed and naturally processed from freshly harvested organic mature coconut.
- NewLife™’s Omega Gold Flax Seed Oil is one of the best sources of natural Omega-3. Most people suffer from a deficiency of the Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs) contained in flax seed oil. EFAs are necessary fats that humans cannot synthesize, and must be obtained through diet. EFAs support the cardiovascular, reproductive, immune, and nervous systems. NewLife™’s Omega Gold Flax Seed Oil assures the highest quality oil, which is extracted from organically grown golden flax seeds using a cold-press process which eliminates the damaging effects of light, oxygen, and heat.
- A daily dose of NewLife™’s Cholestinon which contains Red Yeast Rice safely reduces elevated cholesterol levels by reducing inflammation in the body.
- Focus on Gut Health
The gut is home to a large portion of the immune system. Since inflammation is a response of the immune system, the most effective way to fuel your body’s immune system would be to take care of your gut health.
Taking NewLife™’s ImmuFlora® & Herbal Klenz Power is a natural way to support the immune system by maintaining digestive balance.
- Rejuvenate Your Liver
The liver produces and clears cholesterol in the body. Any complications in the liver function can hinder the organ’s ability to produce or clear cholesterol. Both conditions can create a spike in cholesterol and affect one’s health. This is why it is so important, crucial even, to make conscious decision and effort to keep your liver as healthy as possible.
NewLife™’s Liverin was specifically designed to help protect and support the liver. It contains a proprietary blend of herbs at the right potency, which works together to combat free radicals and oxidative stress.
NewLife™’s Coffee Enema plays an important role in the detoxification of the liver. The Coffee enters the liver via the colon. This causes two effects:
- The dilation of the bile duct which enables toxins to drain out of the liver.
- The increase of the production of Glutathione S. Transferase (G.S.T) by 600 – 700%. GST is an enzyme which helps to remove free radicals and other toxins from the blood.
- Add Some Antioxidants
Antioxidants protect your cells from the effects of free radicals and can help reduce inflammation.
CoQ10 (short for Coenzyme Q10) – Clinical evidence has suggested that CoQ10 has potent effects on inflammatory markers.
CoQ10 is found in meat, fish and whole grains. However, the amount of CoQ10 found in these dietary sources is not sufficient to significantly increase CoQ10 levels in your body. Besides, levels of CoQ10 in your body also decrease as you age.
Hence, taking a CoQ10 supplement is essential. NewLife™’s CoQ10 Plus is an advanced formula, synergistically blended with essential fatty acids found in flaxseed concentrate to enhance bioavailability.
Vitamin C is also another antioxidant that your body cannot live without.