Is Cholesterol a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases?- By Dr Harold Gunatillake

Harold-Gunethilake

Transcript: High blood cholesterol levels are a risk factor for heart disease.

However, dietary cholesterol has little to no effect on blood cholesterol levels in most people. More importantly, there is no significant link between the cholesterol you eat and your risk of heart disease.

Same findings do not apply for foods high in saturated fat.

Unsaturated fatty acids like Olive oil, peanut canola oils are the ‘goody oils’ while saturated fats like butter and coconut oil are considered bad for you because they generate high blood cholesterol that forms part of the coronary plaque.

cholesterol is one of the ingredients that go into the buildup of plaques, and other major components include fat, calcium, waste products from cells and a clotting agent called fibrin.

Plaque’s buildup in the arteries, the artery walls become thickened and stiff, and ultimately leading to blockage from plaques or from blood clots.

Plaques are formed when cholesterol lodges in the wall of the artery. As a reaction to this the body sends white blood cells to trap the cholesterol, which then turn into foamy cells that ooze more fat and cause more inflammation.

Inflammation of the inner lining of blood vessels may promote the growth of plaques, and cholesterol may be an element which adds onto a forming plaque and may not the cause of inflammation of the inner lining of the vessel.

60 per cent of the people who get heart attack have a low blood cholesterol level. The US. government is poised to withdraw longstanding warning about cholesterol. They say time to put back eggs on the menu.

The nation’s top nutrition advisory panel has decided to drop its caution about eating cholesterol-laden food, a move that could undo almost 40 years of government warnings about its consumption.

Now, remember this applies to foods that contain cholesterol and not food containing saturated fats which form cholesterol in the liver.

Such dietary cholesterol containing foods are eggs, sea food such as prawns, crabs, lobsters, dairy among others, and they do have little to no effect on blood cholesterol levels in most people.

More importantly, there is no significant link between the cholesterol you eat and your risk of heart disease.

Foods containing saturated fat includes, butter, meat, dairy coconut, and so on

The group’s finding that cholesterol in the diet need no longer be considered a “nutrient of concern” stands in contrast to the committee’s findings five years ago, the last time it convened. During those proceedings, as in previous years, the panel deemed the issue of excess cholesterol in the American diet a public health concern.

The finding follows an evolution of thinking among many nutritionists who now believe that, for healthy adults, eating foods high in cholesterol may not significantly affect the level of cholesterol in the blood or increase the risk of heart disease, quoted in an article in the Washington Post that appeared 1 year ago.

Let me reiterate this applies to dietary cholesterol specifically.

The danger does not lie in the products such as eggs, shrimps or lobsters or coconut oil, very high in cholesterol, or foods with high saturated fats, but too many servings of such foods with saturated fatty acid meals, such as fatty meals including red meat, whole milk may be a factor to be considered for healthy diet and good health.

More than 20 kinds of fatty acids are in foods, and according to the American Heart Association, “For good health, the majority of the fats that you eat should be monounsaturated or polyunsaturated,” as opposed to saturated or trans fats, which people should avoid.

Why, because they increase your cholesterol in your blood which increases the plaque mass in the blood vessels, the AHA believes.

Coconut oil is ‘pure poison,’ said Harvard professor Karin Michels in a talk on nutrition 3 years ago. Karin Michels, an epidemiologist at the Harvard TH Chan school of public health, poured scorn on the superfood movement and singled out the fad for coconut oil, calling the substance “one of the worst things you can eat” that was as good for wellbeing as “pure poison”.

Michels made her comments in a lecture entitled “Coconut oil and other nutritional errors” at the University of Freiburg, where she holds a second academic position as director of the Institute for Prevention and Tumor Epidemiology.

Michel’s based her warning on the high proportion of saturated fat in coconut oil, which is known to raise levels of so-called LDL cholesterol, and so the risk of cardiovascular disease. Coconut oil contains more than 80% saturated fat, more than twice the amount found in lard, and 60% more than is found in beef dripping.

Processing coconut oil produced by crushing copra is edible and has been consumed in tropical countries for thousands of years.

Virgin coconut oil is a newcomer to the fats and oil market and is fast becoming as valued as virgin olive oil.

The countries that use coconut milk in curries and the oil in frying do not epidemiologically prove that the incidence of cardiovascular disease is higher than those western countries using less of it. It is also revealed that CV disease rate has lowest rates in these respective countries.

It is also revealed that saturated fatty acids in coconut oil increases HDL cholesterol more than LDL cholesterol to give a more favorable lipid profile relative to dietary carbohydrates.

It has been shown that the use of coconut oil in breast cancer patients consumed during chemotherapy helped improve the quality of life and reduced symptoms related to side effects of chemo.

An ecological study for Sri Lanka about health effects of coconut was studied by authors Lathika Athauda, Rajitha Wickremasinghe, Balachandran and Anuradhani Kasturiratne has revealed that the results of their research project did not provide evidence at the population level that consumption of coconut products increased mortality due to cardiovascular diseases.

The Coconut Development Authority of Sri Lanka reports that 60% of total harvest was locally consumed in 2015-2016. Despite the large consumption of coconut oil (CNO), Sri Lankans have a higher life expectancy than countries where coconut consumption is comparatively low.

Coconut has been recorded in archaeological excavations and epigraphic inscriptions, in Sanskrit scriptures of religious, agricultural, and Ayurvedic importance, and in historical records as well as travelogues of visitors from China, Arab, and Italy. Its usefulness and multiplicity of uses has earned it epithets like “Tree of life”, “Tree of heaven”, “Tree of abundance”, and “Kalpavriksha ” (a tree that provides all necessities of life). In addition to its food value, it has health, medicinal, and cosmetic value. Coconut occupies a special and a higher place among the many articles used in religious offerings to Almighty God. In India no religious offer is acceptable without a coconut. It is used in religious and social ceremonies even in areas where it is not grown. Not an inch of the tree goes waste and all parts are put to some working use. Through its innumerable working utilities and direct uses as food, feed, and drink, coconut has penetrated the cultural, social, religious, and lingual matrix of people of various countries.

This information is from a paper written in Jan 2014-Asian Agri-History, authors Subhash, S & U. Ahuja Coconut and other foods containing high saturated fat is condemned for its high cholesterol formation in the body which is considered a risk factor for cardiovascular incidents. But many nutritionists in the US do not believe this story through statistical findings.

So, viewers go for your ‘Pol-Sambol’ which has many nutritive valve ingredients, much more than you think.

The chillie seeds mix gives your vitamin C: the coconut gives you proteins, carbs, fat sugar, fiber, manganese, and selenium. Maldives or dry fish in the sambol gives you antioxidants and omega-3 benefits.

Added lime juice gives the vitamin C. Hope this video talk was useful

Stay safe and goodbye for now.

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