Spiral wrote:New Studies Confirm That A Low HDL Is Not A Risk"I have long questioned the assertion that HDL is unequivocally a ‘good’ cholesterol," commented R. James Barnard, PhD, of UCLA Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology, and author of more than 190 studies on lifestyle and disease.
"For starters, epidemiological data do not match up." Studying populations throughout the world where heart disease is rare, scientists have found that LDL levels are indeed very low, but so are HDL levels – often 20 to 30 mg/dL.
Moreover, recent research has found that the quality of HDL in our blood can change. A saturated-fat-rich diet can foul up the ability of HDL to protect against damage to arteries, turning HDL from "good" (anti-inflammatory) to "bad" (pro-inflammatory) cholesterol.
Dr. Barnard and colleagues have made similar discoveries in their laboratories at UCLA.
"Our research from men attending the Pritikin Longevity Center revealed that pre-Pritikin, the men had HDL levels that were quantitatively normal, but their HDL was pro-inflammatory.
"Post-Pritikin, the men’s HDL had converted to anti-inflammatory despite the fact that total HDL had gone down a little."
"Our work indicates that the Pritikin lifestyle improves the quality of HDL while dramatically lowering the bad LDL cholesterol," sums up Dr. Barnard.
My HDL dropped as Barnard said, but my LDL did not. It's considered by my doctors to be high.
And in reading Brenda Davis's work, Becoming Vegan, at the suggestions of both Lani Muelrath and someone on this forum, the book says that the popular "gold standard" of very low-fat diets can indeed cause high LDL and that a better ratio of fat (preferably from whole, unrefined foods) is 15-30%. An example of this would be a quarter cup of nuts at every meal.
Davis, Brenda, and Vesanto Melina. "Big Fat Lies." Becoming Vegan: The Complete Guide to Adopting a Healthy Plant-based Diet. Summertown, TN: Book Pub., 2000. EPUB file.
