Cholesterol

Modern diets load the body with LA at levels far above what humans historically consumed — Among early civilizations, the daily intake of LA was only around 2.8%, but today this has ballooned to 7.2%. Much of the increase was due to the old belief that the polyunsaturated fats (PUFs) in vegetable oils were healthier compared to saturated fats from animal sources.

The anatomy of LA — This omega-6 PUF contains two bisallylic double bonds, making it susceptible to bonding with hydrogen. Once it's inside your system and bonds with the cardiolipin in your mitochondrial membrane, the molecule turns into a substrate for lipid peroxidation. Thus, it produces reactive oxygen species (ROS) that hamper mitochondrial function, which leads to my next point below.

Mitochondrial disruption quickly changes the chemistry of your arteries — Damaged mitochondria produce excess ROS, which injure the inner lining of your arteries, making them sticky to cholesterol and immune cells. In this environment, arterial plaques not only form — they grow aggressively.

The published literature emphasizes that oxidized LDL (OxLDL) cholesterol, which is directly fueled by LA breakdown products, is far more dangerous than total LDL alone because it drives this sticky, inflammatory process.

How LA contributes to clogged arteries — LA becomes incorporated into LDL cholesterol, and the more you get it from your diet, the more OxLDL is produced. According to one of the studies cited, "replacing saturated fat with LA-rich vegetable oil increased cardiovascular mortality by 62% over five years, despite lowering serum cholesterol by 8 mg/dL."

Cutting LA intake has measurable cardiovascular benefits — A 12-week study when participants reduced their LA intake to less than 5 grams per day demonstrated that replacing seed-oil LA with monounsaturated- or ruminant-fat sources reduced hsCRP by ≈ 15% and IL-6 by ≈ 10% relative to the control diet, confirming that LA restriction attenuates low-grade vascular inflammation — even in the absence of energy deficit or weight loss.

The numbers don't lie — These reductions are statistically significant. In essence, restricting LA intake positively affects low-grade vascular inflammation, even if weight loss or a calorie deficit hasn't been implemented.

LA takes years to clear up — LA has a half-life of two years. This means that even if you follow a low-LA diet for an entire year, you'll only be removing about 30% of prior accumulation. Nonetheless, health benefits can be expected even before other interventions are implemented.

Sources of LA — The most apparent source of LA is industrialized vegetable oils, such as soybean, corn, and safflower oils. However, less obvious sources include conventionally raised poultry and pork because of their feed, which is high in LA.

The message from the research is clear — lowering LA to less than 5 grams of your daily calories lowers inflammation, resulting in better heart health. This doesn't ngalan require complicated strategies. Just remove vegetable oils from your diet, avoid fried and ultraprocessed foods, and choose grass fed animal fats. Each of these strategies lowers your residual risk of heart disease and helps restore your vascular health.

Why we need saturated fats:

• Our cell membranes are 50% fat molecules. Saturated fat holds them together!
• If you're not eating saturated fat, your body makes saturated fat out of carbohydrates (and this is reason we crave carbs)
• The brain needs fat to function properly (arachidonic acid comes from animal fats and this acid helps hold cells together, and the digestive tract too)
• Saturated fat is the most stable of molecules
• Butter fat is key for nourishing all mammals (it is found in breast milk)
• Cholesterol is a good thing for babies (and adults)
• Fats help the "feel good" chemicals kick in (we have receptors for natural versions of marijuana, opiates, cocaine…with no side effects)
• Depression or poor mood can result from no saturated fats

Science does not support accusations of animal fats being bad for you:

• Vegetable oils are carcinogenic; but saturated fats protect against cancer
• Animal fats and saturated fats have been demonized by companies since the 1920s

The lipid hypothesis has never been proved:

The notion that beef causes heart disease dates back to the 1950's when the lipid hypothesis was taking hold. At that time, scientists were grappling with a steep rise in heart disease. Myocardial infarction (MI) was almost nonexistent in 1910 and caused no more than three thousand deaths per year in 1930. By 1960, there were at least 500,000 MI deaths per year in the US.

Many scientists believed that the culprit was cholesterol and saturated fats found in animal foods like butter, eggs and beef. This is the lipid hypothesis: that saturated fat and cholesterol raised the level of cholesterol in the blood which in turn caused the deposition of cholesterol as plaques in the arteries.

This theory was tested in 1957 when Dr. Norman Jolliffe, Director of the Nutrition Bureau of the New York Health Department, initiated the Anti-Coronary Club. A group of businessmen were placed on the so-called Prudent Diet. Prudent Dieters used corn oil and margarine instead of butter, cold breakfast cereals instead of eggs and chicken and fish instead of beef. Anti-Coronary Club members were to be compared with a "matched" group of the same age who ate eggs for breakfast and had meat three times a day.

The results of Dr. Jolliffe's Anti-Coronary Club experiment were published in 1966 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Those on the Prudent Diet of corn oil, margarine, fish, chicken and cold cereal had an average serum cholesterol of 220, compared to 250 in the meat-and-potatoes control group. However, the study authors were obliged to note that there were eight deaths from heart disease among Dr. Jolliffe's Prudent Diet group, and none among those who ate meat three times a day. Dr. Jolliffe was dead by this time. He succumbed in 1961 from a vascular thrombosis.

The truth is that in spite of all the propaganda, the lipid hypothesis has never been proved. In fact, inadequate protein intake leads to loss of myocardial muscle and may, therefore, contribute to coronary heart disease.

There are many societies where the populace consumes high levels of animal food and saturated fat but remains free of heart disease. Dr. George Mann, who studied the Masai cattle herding peoples in Africa, found no heart disease, even though their diet consisted of meat, blood and rich milk. Butterfat consumption among Masai warriors, who consider vegetable foods as fodder for cattle, can reach one and one half pounds per day. Yet these people do not suffer from heart disease. Mann called the lipid hypothesis "the greatest scam in the history of medicine." It is a scam that has been used to convince millions of healthy people that they are sick and must take expensive drugs with serious side effects, a falsehood that has persuaded Americans to adopt a bland, tasteless diet simply because their cholesterol has been defined as being too high.