Cholesterol Debate

(Joey) #21

Welcome to the forum!

Many of us would be interested in hearing about your approach to nutrition and how it helps you achieve your health objectives. :vulcan_salute:

(Geoffrey) #22

I can totally relate with this. In my case it wasn’t willful, just ignorance. When everyone around me is perpetually telling me the same lies how can I know what the truth is. It wasn’t until someone started telling me the truth and it was making sense to me that I was able to come out of the fog of lies.
It’s unfortunate though that so often when people do hear the truth, finally, they have been so indoctrinated that they refuse to open their minds. This I have experienced.

(Bob M) #23

I also think it depends on how you think. A lot of doctors are based more on eminence-based medicine, meaning that if someone eminent says it, it must be true.

This is why you often get people completely outside that sphere, like Dave Feldman, who come along and “break” things. They not only think differently, but they have no preconceived notions of what is “right”.

For me, I think like a true scientist. If there is ONE indication that something fails, it fails. One important piece of this puzzle for me was seeing a study where people with FH (familial hypercholesterolemia, very high LDL) had coronary arterial calcification (CAC) scan scores of zero. Since the CAC scan is an indicator of atherosclerosis (albeit, not a perfect one), and people with FH are getting low scores there, then that means to me LDL does not cause (by itself) atherosclerosis. QED. :wink:

But much like the theories that saturated fat cause heart disease, single studies don’t seem to bother these people. This whole “totality of the evidence” group really needs to go.

(Joey) #24

Also referred to as source credibility. It’s a claim deployed in debating rhetoric. But more importantly, it’s the way most of us are forced to embrace “truth.”

I cannot possibly digest the vast majority of applied technology in fields like biology, chemistry, engineering, aeronautics, climate science, computer hardware design, [… you get the idea…] although it’s not for lack of trying (reading, coursework, study).

I still only get so far before I need to rely on “experts” of some kind - blindly trusting they’ve addressed the solutions upon which I depend in order to function daily in this modern life.

I remain hopeful that these experts have “figured it all out” and that they’ve constructed the best solutions.

As a realist (cynic?) I know this is not always true.

But I need to trust that my car won’t explode, the plane won’t fall out of the sky, the refrigerator won’t electrocute me, or that the food inside it won’t kill me.

These are the fundamental leaps of faith required of us by civilization.

Unfortunately, we encounter many cases where experts are wrong and the result sucks. We then become skeptics about expertise - which reminds us that we must select our experts wisely.

#25

[cough, cough] Vegans… :grin:

(Robin) #26

I was a vegetarian for years. I wasn’t willfully ignorant. It was an informed decision based on as much info supporting that woe as there was for keto back then… maybe more.

I don’t regret my vegetarian years. Was I wrong? I don’t think so.
I’ve always learned by doing.

Was I wrong to kiss so many boys before settling down? Nope. (There’s an analogy hiding in there somewhere.)

(Joey) #27

Perhaps it depends on just how many? :thinking:

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #28

“Kissing is a great goodness”–Valentine Michael Smith in Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein.

(Geoffrey) #29

I can grok that. :grin:

(Geoffrey) #30

Well said. :+1:

#31

Vegans and vegetarians are VASTLY different.
(Well, vegans are vastly different from vegans too, the loud, arrogant, ignorant and sometimes quite hateful “holier than thou” ones aren’t like all the cute, open-minded, nice ones I have met.)

I possibly ate more animal product while being a vegetarian than most people (in general. not vegetarians. of course a huge percentage of people are starving and it they eat, it’s mostly plants, there are numerous vegetarian communities, I think of India, for example but still. lots of people who eat meat eat very little animal product. I saw people thinking 100g meat is a normal amount for a day. it may be for them but they thought it in general). Yeah, vegetarians are VASTLY different from each other too. I did very high-fat, high-protein, high-animal vegetarianism. It was very full with plants too, hence my problems on keto where I couldn’t eat more than 1kg vegs a day and that was below minimal… 1kg was for fruits (not always just sometimes. well sometimes it was 3kg but that’s just on watermelon days), not vegs… :smiley: I always had a problem at keeping my carbs in tiny amounts before low-carb. Sometimes later too, with certain items. I broke the watermelon minimum rule (1kg in one sitting) THIS year and I fell in love with carnivore years ago. (I banned watermelon in the beginning of low-carb but I have exceptional days. I don’t even like watermelon, by the way, it has no really nice flavors. Not bad and it’s SUPER FUN to bite into water but that’s it. It’s too sugary and not enough fruity. And it’s sugary water, basically. Flavored and solidified but still.)
Maybe it triggers someone, it’s summer in many places and who knows :slight_smile: Hence the blur.

Same :slight_smile: I had way too much carbs at that time (not needed for vegetarianism, of course but I liked my stupid, hunger-inducing carbs too) but I felt good, healthy and everything. I don’t mind enjoying the hell out of my carbs in my past, I can neglect them for the rest of my life (not completely but close. except my tiny extras I have even on my carnivore-ish).
And I had reasons for my vegetarianism, I wasn’t wrong.
I can’t go back now, I need extreme low plant carbs, I know that and it’s impossible without meat (and the simplicity! the satiation without overeating!) but sometimes I wonder what my vegetarianism would be like if I had to. I actually got bored of meat to the point of a week of vegetarian stint once but one week is so short, it’s not informative. It would be low-carb and mostly keto, probably with gluten quite frequently, I don’t have many options for low-carb super satiating plant matter I am willing to eat :slight_smile: And it doesn’t harm me, apparently.
I probably would need to take magnesium pills again and I am horrible with supplementation, not like I need much to make the cramps go away but is that enough I wonder…? I may have low (not near ideal) Mg without feeling it, right…? :thinking: No way I would eat the vast majority of green leaves (or any in more than super tiny amounts. a few grams of spring onion leaves when I have it in my garden, that is my style), I never did and never will.

I quite enjoy your style in your recent posts just like I always did. Never change regarding that, you are fun! :smiley: :+1:

#32

Of course not. Experimentation is necessary. :innocent:

(Chuck) #33

My great grandfather, my grandfather, and my father ate a breakfast of eggs, and bacon every morning of their lives as far as I can remember. And a few times a week would add biscuit and sausage gravy on top of their normal breakfast, all three lived into their high 90s, with my great grandfather living to 106, what took my grandfather and father’s lives was smoking, what took my great grandfather’s life was being bucked of his mule, because a rattlesnake scared the mule, my great grandfather broke his hip, the doctors said they couldn’t fix the hip , my great grandfather said okay I no longer have anything to live for if I can’t do what I want to do. He passed within 72 hours of being told he would never walk again.
They all three ate strictly what was grown or raise on our farms. They all stayed slim and very energetic. It was a life long smoking habit that took both my grandfather and father.
I have never smoked, I have cranked very little alcohol. I did fall into the processed and fast food trap for way too long. I am doing my best to correct that mistake.
My total cholesterol is 190, my HDL is 53, and I believe the lab report said my LDL is 132, and the nurse practitioner on my physicians team at the VA is freaking out. My doctor is saying it isn’t a huge deal, my triglycerides/HDL is less than 1 so I don’t see an issue.

(Geoffrey) #34

And that has been the detriment to all of mankind. Our forefathers ate whole foods and we didn’t see a health crisis in this country until processed foods, sugar and grains were pushed on us.
The reason, as I see it, that many of us go the carni way of eating is to heal and reverse that damage done to us from years of eating crap food like substances.

(Michael) #35

I listened to the whole podcast. Was interesting and I thought both did well, although the guest was totally ignorant on diabetes/insulin which made his points moot mostly. Thanks for the link.