Tag Archives: Brain Function

One of Hitler’s most devastating gifts to humankind

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The Third Reich, under its Fuhrer’s rule from 1933 to 1945, but especially during the second world war, was in more ways than those most obvious to us, masterfully devastating in the scope and effects that would have its scientific research programmes.

One of the branches in which laboured a great deal of keen scientific minds was that of biological warfare with the use of poisonous chemical agents. What could be the most effective means to impede, disable, neutralise or completely remove someone’s abilities to fight or even resist? It would be to sever the connection between the central nervous system and a vital organ: pretty simple and definitely very effective.

German determination, dedication, focus, methodology and efficiency is well recognised and highly appreciated all over the world. This is true today as it was then, and if in this day and age it means to us more in terms of German technology—great industrial machinery and equipment, great cars, great appliances, great electronics—together with the fact that, on the world’s stage, we can trust their government’s word and commitment to seeing things through unwaveringly to the end, it certainly would have had a different connotation to the millions who suffered under the Germans during the great war, be it directly or indirectly. Regardless of these considerations, however, these qualities of determination, dedication, focus and efficiency are excellent qualities, well established in German culture and society, and obviously foundational in making the country a powerful and stable industrial and political leader.

It was to be expected that those scientists tasked to identify, develop and refine the biological and chemical technologies necessary to accomplish their intended function of quickly, silently and as effectively as possible disable the human target without as much as a single drop of blood being shed in the process, was indeed accomplished, and masterfully so. The result was chemical agents that were called ‘nerve gas’.

Nerve gas worked exactly as it was intended: it broke the biochemical connection between the brain and the heart. More specifically, it inhibited the enzyme cholinesterase whose critical function is to break down excesses of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine that enacts the brain’s messaging to the heart in order to avoid overstimulation. Acetylcholine is there to trigger the firing of neurons that control heart and bowel function. It sits in the synapses, the gap between neurons, and does this. The mechanism to ensure that there is enough but not excessive acetylcholine nerve stimulation, is the enzyme-depended breakdown of any surplus acetylcholine. Without optimal function of the enzyme cholinesterase, acetylcholine accumulates between neutrons and induces overstimulation, which can quite effectively bring the heart to a stop without bloodshed, without pain, without any noise, and without any drama: just quickly and effectively.

How does nerve gas work today? Precisely in the same way it did in 1945. It was recognised early on in this research that most, and maybe all animals, no matter how large or small, share if not identical, very similar biochemical and hormonal pathways, especially in terms of nervous system function. Can you see where this is leading?

The technological developments during the era of the second world war were tremendous: the planes, the cars and trucks, the tanks,  the guns, the bombs, and all the physics and engineering, the chemistry and the biochemistry involved. It really was revolutionary in regards to the power available at our fingertips to do whatever we could imagine or whatever was needed to make things simpler, easier, more efficient. What came of all this was global, widespread use of large , complex machinery and global, widespread use of chemical for anything and everything we could think of.

The shift from traditional family farming, which since it began 10000 years ago was always done on really very small scales, and naturally with the largest workable and sustainable variety of plant species being grown together, to the modern ways that could best accommodate the limitations imposed by using great big machines instead of our hands to tend the fields, gave way to huge monocultures, which in turn, gave way to huge problems with insects attracted to these particular species of plants being grown without the natural balancing effects of competing or antagonistic insects attracted to different plants growing side by side in the small space of the family garden.

Just follow this impeccable human logic: nerve gas kills humans by blocking the action of the enzyme cholinesterase required to regulate the amount of stimulation triggered by the neurotransmitter acetylcholine that controls heart function by adjusting neuron firing and breakdown rate; all higher animals, including insects, have similar functioning nervous systems because we all evolved from the same primitive ancestors whose most essential function were controlled by their nervous system, whatever form it took; we want to cultivate huge fields of monocultures because it is efficient in producing large quantities of food without much time or labour by using large machines to take care of these field; unfortunately, large monocultures attract disproportionally large numbers of the same kinds of pests that then have free reigns over the plants cultivated because they have no other insects to compete against; insects are affected in similar ways as we are by nerve gas, but because they are much smaller, because we are so much larger and stronger than they are, they would be lethally affected by small quantities of nerve gas while we would not, or at least not very much.

It’s perfect! Amazing! We spray diluted nerve gas on our large mono-cultured crops, kill all these awfully annoying insects that are trying to eat our food, and then simply collect everything intact and in perfect condition. This is the magic of industrial chemistry. What do we call this diluted nerve gas, these chemical agents? Pesticides, of course. Very popular right from the start, but incredibly more popular today than 70 years ago.

In fact, pesticides are more than 30 times more popular today than they were in 1945. Every year we dump more than four billion pounds of pesticides on the soil of the Earth. Four billion pounds worldwide, and one quarter of this—one billion pounds—is used in the US alone!

As can be expected from our amazing human ingenuity, cleverness, tenacity and industriousness, there are now tens of thousands of different kind of ‘nerve gases’ with different purposes, different functions, different effects and different potencies. We are so darn good, so clever at improving things, making them longer lasting, more effective, more targeted, more concentrated, and naturally… more lethal.

The obviousness of the truth is painful and so we look away: all pesticides are neurotoxic because this is how they function to kill pests. But since we are also a pest of sorts, they are neurotoxic to us in the same way as they are to those insects we want to get rid of. As a result, we are killing the insects, and we are killing ourselves. Moreover, we are doing it better and better each year and with every passing day. That’s the long and short of it. Sorry to be the bearer of such bad news.

Yes, we can eat our own home-grown stuff, and exclusively organic and pasture raised food—I do and have been for the last 18 years since graduating from McGill in the spring of 1996. But pesticides are in the rivers, oceans and water tables, as well as in the air, the clouds and the rain. And this, in ever-increasing concentrations. What we can do is try to protect ourselves as best we can by minimising our ingestion of and exposure to such poisons by all the means available to us, integrate continuous detoxification practices in our daily life, and do whatever we can to shift the balance of policymaking towards the support of small scale organic farming and away from the industrial monoculture model pervading over so much of the planet. Maybe the trends will change, and maybe sooner rather than later, but it’s hard to tell.

With the opportunity and truly great privilege we have to be alive and able to look back onto the past, and consider anew the circumstances, events and developments that took or might have taken place with a fresh perspective encompassing a multitude of informative elements available to us now but that were not at the time, I believe that nobody could have foreseen that the chemical technology of biological warfare agents developed during the second world war in Germany would become so incredibly popular as to pervade the entire planet to the extent of reaching virtually all ecosystems from the poles to the equator, up and down and all around to the most isolated and distant. And although seldom recognised as such, it is this, one could argue, that has had the most important and pervasive negative impact on humankind, one of the most devastating consequences of Hitler’s lethally poisonous legacy: the gift of pesticides.

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What about concentration

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Concentration is a complex topic. As with many other things, because we use a single word for it, we can be tricked into believing that it is, in fact, one thing even though it is not. In addition to that, different people will likely mean different things when they use the term “concentration”.

For me, “concentration” means focusing attention onto something, and in the process, excluding as much as we can of everything else that is going on in the field of present experience, deeming them distractions. To concentrate on trying to hear a particular sound, for example, a very faint sound way off in the distance, implies directing our attention towards it with all our mental might. And somehow by doing this it is implied that we have to exclude everything else that is happening, and the better we can exclude everything else the more concentrated we can be.

But focused attention tends to be very fast moving, spontaneously jumping from this thing to that thing to the other thing, continuously and restlessly. This happens so quickly and so continuously that most of us hardly notice it at all. Therefore concentrating requires a great deal of effort and energy. This is why it is so exhausting, and this is also why it cannot possibly be sustained for very long. In fact, there may come a time when we notice that concentrating is becoming harder and harder, or even that we are simply unable to do it for any length of time. And then we start to worry because we feel that we cannot get anything done as we are totally distracted and scattered, continuously and incessantly.

Naturally, our first strategy should be to minimise our own stimulating of this jumping from one thing to another by restricting ourselves to doing the task we have at hand whole heartedly, without interrupting ourselves every few minutes or even seconds to check this last email that just came in to our inbox, or lookup something with Google. For most of us, this kind of scattered multi-tasking will only exacerbate the scattering of attention and gradually prevent us from doing any one thing for longer than a few minutes, if that. To minimise mental jumpiness we should minimise jumpiness in the way we work and function. Just turn off that email notifier, close your inbox, close your web browser, and work on your document or the problem you are trying to solve.

Beyond this basic strategy of minimising scattering behaviours, what if instead of concentrating we simply paid attention. The essential difference is that although paying attention does require a certain kind of effort, it does not require excluding anything at all, it does not require the straining effort of continuously pushing things away to re-focus attention. In fact, the more facets of our immediate experience we include in paying attention—the more we open our attention—the more we can indeed pay close attention to what we are attending to. Since we tend to focus on the thoughts, images, memories and run-on stories and commentaries that we continuously tell ourselves throughout the day and night, since we tend to live in our head, looking out through the eyes as if they were our windows onto this world outside that surrounds and often threatens us in various ways, the means to bring in balance is to spread attention to the body.

Feel the breath in the belly filling our inner cavity with air and keeping us alive in this very moment, and feel it in the belly with the belly, not just once, but breath after breath after breath. Feel the feet on the floor with the feet and toes, whether we are sitting, standing or walking: feeling the weight of the body rolling from the heel to the front of the foot, first on the right foot, then on the left, step after step. Feel the hands holding a cold glass of water, holding a hot cut of tea, holding a book, holding a baby: feeling the weight, the texture, the temperature. Feeling the water running on the skin when we wash the hands over the sink, the body in the shower. Really feel the body with the body. Don’t talk about it to yourself, don’t comment: just feel it.

Doing this—feeling the life of this body with this living body—will gradually and naturally bring our attention into balance, allowing us to function more freely, more easily, and more efficiently, no matter what we are doing. However, on the most basic level, our emotions, moods, tendencies, states and thus the general configurations of attention, are regulated by hormones: messengers coursing through the blood carrying all sorts of signals to organs and tissues. And as it cannot possibly be otherwise because the same blood circulates everywhere, all of these hormones have some influence on our brain. Therefore, for the brain to function properly, and our moods to be stable, and our attitude positive, there is no other way than to re-establish and maintain proper hormonal balance. Hormones, in turn, are primarily regulated by what we eat and what we drink: hormonal balance is rooted in our diet.

One of, if not the most important hormone—the one that has both the greatest direct and indirect influence on the other hormones—is insulin. For this reason, the only way to establish and maintain proper hormonal balance is to make sure that insulin is balanced—that it is by natural means as low as possible.  When insulin is low, everything else naturally falls into place: appetite, energy levels, mood, mental function and sleep. Naturally, it should be needless to say that all chemical stimulants, be it coffee, alcohol, cigarettes or drugs (prescription or not) should be eliminated, as these are all potent hormonal disruptors.

Fortunately, it is very easy to lower insulin levels and keep them low: as insulin levels mirror blood glucose levels, we need simply eliminate refined and starchy carbohydrates from your diet. Unfortunately, for most of us today this is not so easy because we are plainly addicted to carbohydrates.

I use “addicted” with the same strong, negative connotation as it is used in the context of drug use, because it really is so in the sense that our entire hormonal system is regulated by glucose levels and insulin, and although we may think somewhat differently of the powerful urge to smoke a cigarette or have a cup of coffee, an intense craving for chocolate or plain old hunger, all of these are regulated by our hormones whose overall profile is shaped, (distorted rather), by the presence of sugar and insulin. So, we do need to get over our addition to carbohydrates in order to function smoothly and efficiently as stable and balanced individuals. This is done by gradually reducing refined and starchy carbs as much as possible. And there is no minimum: the less of them we consume, the better off we’ll be.

Eliminating these carbohydrates from our diet will most likely lead to the elimination of at least half, if not three quarters of our daily calories. Considering the multitude of detrimental effects carbs have on our health—on our body and mind—this is indeed quite sad, but for most of us it is true. So what do we replace these empty calories with? Fats, and mineral and enzyme rich foods.

Fat is not only the constituent of every membrane of every cell in our body, but it is also the cellular fuel of choice. Therefore, fat should rightly be our main source of calories—at least 50% of them (I personally aim for 70% of my calories from fat). What kinds of fats? Lots of natural, unprocessed, chemically stable saturated fats from coconut oil, butter, eggs and cheese—preferably all organic to minimise the ingestion of toxic substances; monounsaturated fats from olive oil for salad dressings—choose a flavourful, unfiltered, fresh and cold pressed oil; polyunsaturated plant-based omega-3, omega-6 and omega-9 fats with Vitamin E complex from many different kinds of whole, raw nuts and seeds every day—buy only the best and freshest organic or wild harvested nuts and seeds; and polyunsaturated animal-based omega-3 fats with the vital Vitamins A and D from eggs, fish (for those who eat some), and krill oil supplements—these are absolutely essential for optimal health. Omega-3 fats are really important but needed only in small amounts. They should also be consumed in small amounts because they are very easily oxidised into free radicals. The animal omega-3 fats are particularly important for proper brain function.

Cholesterol is essential, especially for optimal brain and nerve function because synapses—the connections that allow electrical impulses to travel from one nerve cell to another—are almost entirely made of cholesterol. Moreover, most hormones are also made from it as cholesterol is used as their building block. Therefore, we must consume plenty of cholesterol-rich foods such as eggs, as well as plenty of cholesterol synthesis-promoting foods such as the good saturated fats mentioned above.

Minerals basically make up the solids of the body, and in this respect, it is vital to replenish them on a daily basis through the foods we eat: nuts, seeds and vegetables, (sea vegetable are the richest of all). And for vegetables, the greener and darker the better. Furthermore, eaten raw these nuts, seeds and vegetables provide plenty of enzymes and anti-oxidants that offer a wide spectrum of remarkable health benefits. It is crucial to keep in mind that all minerals and anti-oxidants are much better absorbed from the small intestine into the bloodstream when there is plenty of fat in the digestive system. In fact, in some cases, the absence of fat prevents the absorption of both minerals and anti-oxidants. I have not included fruit in this discussion because fruits are basically just simple sugars: glucose and fructose, and offer very little in terms of minerals, and phytonutrients compared to most vegetables. All berries, however, fresh or dried, are excellent as they are usually low in sugar, and often very high in anti-oxidant and healthful compounds.

Sometimes, allergies and toxicities such as heavy metal accumulation in the tissues, are at the root of what may appear to be either a mood or neurological disorder. The best way to detoxify and cleanse the body of heavy metals such as mercury is to take chlorella and spirulina supplements on a daily basis, on an empty stomach with plenty of water at least 30 minutes before meals. These have the ability to bind to heavy metals and flush them out of the body through the stools. And as for allergenic compounds, this needs to be investigated be each person individually.

Finally, water is vital for life and health. We must therefore have plenty of it, and drink on an empty stomach first thing in the morning and before meals.

There is no way to address what we may call “concentration problems” without addressing everything about what we eat and drink. Everything relating to brain function is also related to bodily functions and vice versa. Whether we like it or not, and whether we recognise it or not, this bodymind is whole, and mind and body are seamless. This is therefore how it must be taken care of and treated.

But what about cholesterol?

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Cholesterol is nothing less than vital for life. It is vital for development. It is vital for growth. It is vital for reproduction. It is ultimately vital for both life to emerge, and for life to sustain itself. This is not a personal opinion—it’s a fact.

Why? Because every membrane of every single cell in your body relies on cholesterol to give it structural integrity. Because every single nerve cell in your brain and every synapse through which nerve impulses are transmitted are mostly made of cholesterol. Because every sex hormone of every woman, man and child is constructed from cholesterol. Simply put, without cholesterol, animal life is impossible. There is not a single person in the world that can dispute this—it is simply so.

Does it even make sense to say that cholesterol is important for health, when our very existence and that of every animal life form depend on it? And how in the world can anyone even formulate the notion that cholesterol can be bad in any way, let alone the cause of a disease, and go as far as suggesting that we should avoid it and try to minimise or even suppress the body’s production of it as if it were some kind of poisonous substance whose purpose is to harm us? This is nothing less then absurd—totally and completely absurd.

I wish it were enough to say just these things to dispel all false, but firmly held beliefs we hold “on the dangers that cholesterol poses to our health” that have been repeated to us over the years, and that are now ingrained in our mind. Unfortunately, although those few fundamental points about cholesterol made above are more than enough to convince me that the entire anti-cholesterol campaign is at best a huge misunderstand, and at worse one of the biggest and most lucrative scams in human history, I fear that for most of us who have been thoroughly brainwashed by decades of misinformation, it will not suffice. So let’s look at this a little more closely, such that once you have finished reading this article, you will be a lot better informed than you were, and in fact, almost surely better informed than your family physician.

No such thing as “good” or “bad” cholesterol

Firstly, cholesterol comes in only one form: there is no such thing as good and bad cholesterol. Whether it is the cholesterol contained in the dark orange yolk of a fresh, free range, organic egg, whether it is the cholesterol synthesised by your liver through a complicated chain of steps that we still do not understand completely, or whether it is the cholesterol produced by the individual cells like the glial cells in the brain, or in any other tissue or organ other than the liver. And yes, this is yet something else that should make us clue in to the fact that cholesterol is vital for survival: unlike almost any other molecule, cholesterol is maybe the only one that probably every cell in every tissue can produce. Amazing, isn’t it? Why would most if not all cells be endowed with this ability, if cholesterol was not of vital importance to their survival as a living entity? Anyway, there is only one form of cholesterol, and although I am repeating myself, it is very important to make the point as clear as possible: cholesterol is beyond good or bad—it is simply vital.

What are LDL and HDL?

Secondly, what is usually referred to as “good” or “bad” cholesterol (the result of a marketing scheme by the pharmaceutical industry), are actually complex molecules called lipoproteins. They are proteins that transport lipids in the bloodstream (hence lipo-protein), and in particular cholesterol, to and from tissues in different parts of the body. Cholesterol is a waxy, fatty substance that is not soluble in water and therefore cannot flow in the bloodstream which is mostly water. For this reason it needs to be transported where it is needed by some other molecules: the lipoproteins. It is indeed most unfortunate that we hear about LDL as the ‘bad’, and HDL as the ‘good’ cholesterol. This is not only false, but completely absurd.

LDL stands for Low Density Lipoprotein, and HDL stands for High Density Lipoprotein. The reason why this erroneous association and misguided use of these terms came about—beyond the scheme to make us believe that there is a bad agent in our blood that we need to get rid of by taking drugs—is based on the fact that one of the functions of LDL is to transport cholesterol from the liver, where most of it is manufactured, to cells and tissues, where need it for repair and regeneration. Since LDL helps to carry cholesterol out from the liver and into the bloodstream to tissues, in imagining that cholesterol in the blood should be minimised, this is clearly a terrible thing. Hence LDL was dubbed the “bad” cholesterol. Does this makes any sense? Not the slightest.

Why does the liver produce this complex cholesterol molecule, and why is there LDL to carry it from the liver to the organs and tissues of our body? Because cholesterol is necessary for the manufacture, maintenance, and repair of the membrane of every single one of the 50 trillion cells in the body.

Naturally, for a molecule as important, as complex to synthesise, and therefore as precious as cholesterol, the organism has evolved a way to collect and reuse it: the three R’s of Reduce (the need for synthesis), Reuse, and Recycle (everything you can). One of the roles of the HDL carrier molecules is to collect unneeded or surplus cholesterol and bring it back to the liver. Once more, in imagining that cholesterol in the blood should be minimised—beyond the clever trick to introduce the essential protagonist to counter the imagined antagonist, for if there is a bad guy there naturally must be a good guy—because HDL helps to carry cholesterol from the bloodstream back to liver, it was dubbed the “good” cholesterol. Does this makes any sense? Not the slightest.

So we know that one of the the roles of LDL and HDL molecules—certainly the most obvious one—is to transport cholesterol from the liver to cells and tissues, and back to it for reuse and recycling or breakdown into other molecules. LDL and HDL work together as partners in the cholesterol transport system. But do these lipoproteins have other roles in the complex biochemistry of the human body? Indeed they do.

HDL and LDL: beyond cholesterol transport

As incredible as this may possibly sound to you if you are still brain-washed by the anti-cholesterol campaigns intended to convince you to eat more highly processed, tasteless, odourless, chemically altered and typically rancid vegetable oils, as well as to start taking “life-saving” statin drugs, compiling all the data we have from studies that measured lipoprotein levels in the blood and death rates, we find that the lowest mortality from all diseases occurs in people with total lipoprotein levels between 200 and 240, centred on 220 mg/dl. These are age-corrected data, so as we age levels should gradually rise. But that’s not the only thing we find from looking at this graph of compiled data: there is an inverse relationship between lipoprotein levels and mortality such that the lower the lipoprotein levels are, the higher the death rate! and this for all diseases—infectious, parasitic and cardiovascular. To those who know what HDL and LDL molecules do, this is not surprising at all. It is, in fact, perfectly sensible.

As much as some may believe that the main role of LDL and HDL molecules is to carry cholesterol to and from tissues for cellular maintenance and repair, some would argue that their main role is not simple transport of cholesterol, but in fact, it is to protect the organism from bacterial and viral pathogens. It is firmly established that lipoproteins bind to endotoxins to inactivate them and protect against their toxic effects that include arterial wall inflammation. Endotoxins are part of the outer membrane of the cell wall of Gram-negative bacteria such as Escherichia coli, Salmonella, Shigella, Pseudomonas, Neisseria, Haemophilus influenzae, Bordetella pertussis and Vibrio cholerae, all of which can cause severe, well known diseases. In addition, lipoproteins also protect against viruses like hepatitis B, and consequently in this case, against cancer and other diseases of the liver as reported here. There are many scientific publications on this and related topics, but most are quite complicated. (If you are interested in this kind of thing, you can look at this article, and browse through the long list of references. For those interested in bacteriology, I found a great free online textbook by Kenneth Todar of the University of Wisconsin.)

The essential point to remember, however, is that the lipoproteins LDL and HDL play a very important role in our immune system by neutralising harmful toxins released from the activity of pathogenic bacteria and viruses, thus protecting us from infectious diseases and the related chronic inflammation. This is why people with higher levels of lipoproteins LDL and HDL live longer and healthier lives.

Cholesterol and the brain

Although all cell membranes rely on cholesterol for structural integrity, neurons or brain cells are highly enriched in cholesterol that makes up more than 20% of their dry weight. The importance of this enrichment can be appreciated when we consider that our brain accounts for 2% of our body weight, but it contains 25% of the cholesterol in the body. This means that the amount of cholesterol in the brain is 12.5 times higher than the average. Isn’t this enough to convince you of the extreme importance of cholesterol for proper brain functions?

As elsewhere in the body, cholesterol is found in the cell membrane. For brain cells this is the myelin sheaths that insulate them. But in addition, and maybe more importantly, cholesterol is the main constituent of the synapses through which nerve impulses are transmitted from one neurons to another. And contrary to common wisdom that lipoproteins cannot cross the blood-brain barrier, and therefore brain cholesterol must be synthesised in the brain, it has been shown that if something prevents brain cells from synthesising the precious cholesterol, then they use whatever they can get from the lipoproteins circulating in the blood.

With these facts in mind, is it surprising that when cholesterol synthesis is suppressed by taking statin drugs, some of the most common symptoms are memory loss, dizziness, mental fog, slowing reflexes, all of which are directly related to brain function? Is it surprising that Alzheimer’s patients tend to have lower cholesterol levels both in the blood and in the brain? Well no, it’s not.

Do we need to go further? Don’t we all want to have a brain that is provided with all the fat and cholesterol is needs to function optimally for as long as we are alive? I think so. But if you want to learn more about the detrimental effects of cholesterol-reducing drugs, you can read any or all of Dr Duane Graveline‘s books: Lipitor: Thief of Memory; Statin Drugs Side Effect and the Misguided War on Cholesterol; and Statin Damage Crisis. I also stumbled upon this article in the Wall Street Journal (out of all places!), that describes how important cholesterol is for the brain, and hence, how damaging cholesterol-lowering drugs can be.

Cholesterol and hormones

What more needs to be said to emphasise its importance for healthy hormonal function than that all steroid hormones are made from cholesterol. Steroid hormones, as the names suggests, are steroids that act as hormones. Hormones are messenger molecules that tell cells what to do and when to do it. To carry out their function, (pass on their message), they must reach the nucleus of the cell. But to reach the well protected nucleus and bind to specific receptors in it, hormones must pass through the fatty cellular membrane. For this reason, hormones are made of fat: they are lipids. Since lipids are not water soluble, as is the case of cholesterol, hormones rely on specialised proteins to transport them in the bloodstream throughout the body.

There are 5 groups of steroid hormones: glucocorticoids, mineralocorticoids, androgens, oestrogens and progestogens, as well the closely related hormones that we refer to as Vitamin D. Each one of these is a family of hormones responsible for regulating the metabolism related to a specific group of substances.

Glucocorticoids are steroids produced in the adrenal gland, and responsible for glucose metabolism. Cortisol is maybe the most important of glucocorticoids as it is absolutely essential for life, regulating or supporting a variety of important cardiovascular, metabolic, immunologic, and homeostatic functions.

Mineralocorticoids are responsible for the regulation of minerals, the most important of which are sodium and potassium. The main mineralocorticoids is aldosterone that acts on the kidneys to regulate reabsorption of sodium and water from the bloodstream, but also the secretion of potassium. These two minerals are required in the well known sodium-potassium pump that continuously—for every single cell—work to ensure that the concentration of sodium stays higher outside the cell, while the concentration of potassium stays higher inside the cell. It is also through the sodium-potassium pump that glucose is transported from the bloodstream into the cell.

Androgens, oestrogens and progestogens are sex hormones. They must all be in good balance for proper development and physiological function, as well as psychological health in both males and females. It is important to emphasise that although we typically associate the main androgen, testosterone, with men, this hormone plays a very important role in muscle development and inhibition of fat deposition, both of which are equally essential in men and women. There are also several psychological factors regulated by the concentration and relative balance of male and female sex hormones such as assertiveness, motivation, self-confidence, on the one hand, and calm, caring and compassion, on the other.

Interestingly, the most important oestrogens are derived from androgens through the action of enzymes. Therefore a deficiency in androgens will naturally lead to a corresponding deficiency in oestrogenic hormones. Oestrogens regulate all aspects of the reproductive system in women. Phychologically, low oestrogen levels are associated with depression and hyper-sensitivity in females, and insecurity and obsessive compulsive behaviours in males. Progestogens are most important in their role in maintaining pregnancy (pro-gestation) and are therefore most important for women. They are, however, special hormones because progestogens are precursors to all other steroids. All steroid producing tissues such as the adrenals, ovaries and testes, must therefore be able to produce progestogens. To learn more about hormones, their importance, their effects and how to bring them into balance through diet, I recommend the Hormone Solution or Le regime hormone (in french) by Thierry Hertoghe, MD.

Too much cholesterol?

There is no such thing as too much cholesterol. The body produces exactly what it needs depending on the conditions, and as such, the amount in circulation is a consequence of other factors. Lipoprotein levels, reflecting the amount of cholesterol in circulation, are a function of genetics and of the state of the body. Genetic tendencies are what they are. The state of the body, as far as cholesterol is concerned, means primarily the condition of the tissues. And the condition of the tissues reflects the amount of damage they sustain in relation to the amount of repair that takes place, or in other words, the rate of ageing.

Since cholesterol gives cell membranes strength and integrity, it is needed to repair and rebuild cells. Therefore, the more cellular reproduction, as in growing children for example, the greater the need. But equally, the more cellular damage, the greater the need for cholesterol to repair the injured tissues. The damage sustained by tissues is primarily from glycation, free-radicals, and chronic inflammation, all of which are intimately related because blood sugar triggers both free-radical production and inflammatory processes, but inflammation also arises from the action of toxins and infectious agents like viruses and bacteria.

Refined and starchy carbohydrates and chemically unstable polyunsaturated vegetable oils both directly cause glycation, free-radical damage, and chronic inflammation. They should be eliminated from the diet to minimise tissue damage and ageing, maximise repairing and rebuilding, and as a consequence, minimise risks of degenerative diseases. It will also normalise cholesterol synthesis and usage, and bring lipoprotein levels into their optimal range, completely naturally because, (once more), the body’s cholesterol requirements and thus lipoprotein concentrations are a consequence of other factors. They should not be tampered with and artificially manipulated, because interventions of this kind can only and will inevitably lead to problems.

Further readings on cholesterol

If you want to learn more about cholesterol, I recommend to first read the short and light-hearted book by Malcolm Kendrick, MD, entitled The Great Cholesterol Con subtitled The truth about what really causes heart disease and how to avoid it. Beyond showing that cholesterol and saturated fat are not in any way causes of heart disease, this author presents convincing evidence that, in fact, it is psychological stress that is surely one of the main causes of heart disease.

After reading this, if you want to read a complete analysis of all the studies related in some way to heart disease that is also very accessible to a general readership, you should read the much longer but very thorough book by Anthony Colpo, revealingly also entitled The Great Cholesterol Con, but subtitled Why everything you’ve been told about cholesterol, diet and heart disease is wrong! Beyond the thorough review of the literature and clearly explained conclusions, the author looks at all major factors demonstrably linked to the causes of heart disease.

For a shorter but more technical review and close look at the cholesterol and saturated fat related scientific literature, you should read Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD. Beyond also showing that cholesterol and saturated fats are not in any way the cause of heart disease, this author makes a case for infectious disease as the root cause of arterial inflammation, buildup of plaque, and eventually heart disease. His line of arguments is also quite convincing.

The excellent book by Gary Taubes, Good Calories, Bad Calories, is a thorough review of 150 years of diet-related medical history, especially in what relates to obesity and diabetes, but also heart disease. The writing style is that of a good science writer, as is the author. There is a full analysis of the lipid hypothesis of heart disease, followed by a full analysis of the carbohydrate hypothesis of heart disease. And although there more of an emphasis on the detrimental effects of eating carbohydrates, there is naturally considerable discussion of all points that relate to cholesterol and saturated fats.

Lastly, this is an excellent web site on cholesterol, full of interesting and well-researched articles: http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com and an excellent interview here.

Why Oh Why?

Why is it then, that most of us believe cholesterol is bad? Why do most of us believe we should, not sometimes, but always avoid foods that contain cholesterol or saturated fats that seem to help the body manufacture cholesterol? Because we have been told that it is. Nothing more complicated than that. We have been told this absurd, unfounded and clearly dangerous story, which is in fact a lie, but we believe it. Why have we been made to believe this? The answer is two-fold: on the one hand, bad science, bad scientists and egos, and on the other, money—lots and lots of money. In fact, more than 29 000 000 000 dollars worth of money.

For the “bad science” part I will only say this: It is true that the accumulation of plaque can lead to heart disease. It is also true that plaque is very cholesterol-rich. However, the reason why plaque is formed is because the arterial tissue is damaged and needs to be repaired. The cholesterol-rich plaque is like a scab whose role is to allow the damaged tissue to heal. And just as a scab, once the tissue is healed, it “falls off” and is brought back to the liver for recycling. The cholesterol is part of the healing agent: the cure, so to speak. The damage to the tissue comes from other things, wether it is inflammatory endotoxins released from pathogenic bacteria, cigarette smoking-related chemicals, or maybe most importantly glucose sticking haphazardly to proteins, damaging the arterial walls and forming advanced glycation end-products or AGEs for short, cholesterol is the bandage meant to help the tissue heal—not the cause of the problem.

For the “money” part, I will have to write a few more paragraphs. In the 1950s the vegetable oil industry found a way to hydrogenate inexpensive liquid vegetable oil made from soy and corn into firm shortening. This gave them the perfect means to compete for, and indeed takeover a large share of the market that had traditionally been held by the dairy (butter), meat (lard) or coconut and palm oil producers to which they did not have a way to tap into. With hydrogenation, they were able to produce butter substitutes (margarines), as well as lard and tropical oil substitutes (shortenings), and offer them at a mere fraction of the price of the original products with the potential of making enormous profits with their sale on a national and in some cases international scales. Therefore, unfortunately, but not so surprisingly, many of the large scale trials in the field of dietary science carried out in the 60s, 70s and 80s were funded by the vegetable oil industry.

The money that the vegetable oil industry must have made and still makes the world over, however, is probably nothing in comparison to the billions raked in every year by a handful of pharmaceutical manufacturers that produce and sell the cholesterol-lowering statins. In 2003, the best selling prescription drug in the world was Pfizer’s Lipitor with sales of 9.2 billion dollars (that’s more than 25 million per day). And in 2009 statin sales generated a staggering 25 billion dollars in revenues, and this figure has been rising since the very beginning of statin sales in the 1990s.

But doctors don’t have anything to gain from this, do they? Well, no, not really. But for one thing, doctors are usually not research scientist, and thus they are generally not only very poorly informed about health-related matters, but also unable or simply uninterested in reading books written by specialists on various health topics, let alone in reading the often technical and complicated scientific literature.

To make matters worse, 75% of clinical trials are funded by pharmaceutical companies, and therefore about 75% of all published medical papers also derive from pharmaceutical funding. Finally, the vast majority of conferences and workshops that doctors are invited to attend, all expenses paid of course, to keep them informed of the latest and greatest developments in medical science are also usually fully funded by the pharmaceutical. It goes without saying that what is presented at these conferences naturally serves their interests that are obviously purely financial.

I think you get the picture, but if you want to read more about this, all of the independent researchers and authors mentioned above: Malcolm Kendrick (The Great Cholesterol Con) and Uffe Ravnskov (Cholesterol and Fat are Good for You) who both practice medicine and have thus experienced this first hand, as well as Gary Taubes (Good Calories, Bad Calories) and Anthony Colpo (a different The Great Cholesterol Con) have some things to say about corporate involvement in clinical trials. Obviously, you can also search the internet to your heart’s content.

Final words

I hope I have succeeded in convincing you that cholesterol is not in the least harmful, and that it is, in fact, absolutely vital to your health: vital for your hormonal system, vital for your immune system, vital for your brain, and vital for every cell in your body.

I also hope I have convinced you that it is not only the case that everything you have been told that incriminates either cholesterol or LDL as causing heart disease or any other ailment is dead wrong, but that you should actually do whatever you can to maintain optimal lipoprotein levels around 220 mg/dl, and supply your body with ample amounts of unaltered health-promoting fats, as well as fat-soluble vitamins and cholesterol from organic eggs from free range, grass-and-insect eating hens, butter and fatty cheeses (preferably from unpasteurized milk to improve digestibility), and grass-fed meats. But here, and as I always emphasise, the most fundamental health-promoting thing to do is to eliminate insulin-stimulating and inflammation-causing carbohydrates.