My writing style and my general style with my private patients is one of fairness and balance. I am open. I am willing. When there is a position that is opposite of mine within the health world, I stay open because there are many roads leading to health. Dr. John Lowe, the physician who wrote the foreward to my book, The Hormone Zone, commented on my writing style as one of a “British aristocrat.” (Interestingly, my heritage is British and my father was from England, but I had never told him that!) I suppose, on some deep, dark level, I like to think of myself as a classy British aristocrat. However…when it comes to the cholesterol myth and the incessant and insipid belief of doctors and my well-meaning patients that cholesterol is evil, the levels need to be extremely low, and that saturated fat is the work of the devil brings me to massive frustration. But I listen to my patients and gently encourage them to consider other points of view and discuss with their doctor about getting off their cholesterol lowering medication, etc, etc. But today, I am just going to say what needs to be said and maybe with a little bit of cutting sarcasm. 🙂
If you could see my lips right now, I would ask you to read them! Fat is not bad for you! Cholesterol is good for you! You need it to live, it helps make hormones, and protects your cells! And your levels of cholesterol are really not that important and their levels sure as hell do not need to be pushed down so low that you need a microscope to read them on the paper! This is insanity and flies in the face of common sense and thousands of years of experience with traditional peoples using saturated fat and cholesterol not just for their general health but for their very survival. It’s how we got here in the first place people! If it was not for rich sources of fat we would not have evolved as a species. Our brains depended on fat then and they depend on it now. Having a “fat” head is a good thing. Animal fat brings the highest concentration of the fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K) more than any other food…ANY! So sit down, get your mind right by eating some free-range eggs cooked in vitamin rich butter and tasty lard with a side of free-range bacon and read very closely the latest research that has helped to blow the saturated fat and cholesterol myth out of the water!
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In a 2012 study, researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology examined the health and lifestyle habits of more than 52,000 adults ages 20 to 74, concluding that women with “high cholesterol” (greater than 270 mg/dl) had a 28 percent lower mortality risk than women with “low cholesterol” (less than 183 mg/dl). Please re-read that. Higher cholesterol LOWERED their risk of death!Researchers also found that, if you’re a woman, your risk for heart disease, cardiac arrest, and stroke are higher with lower cholesterol levels.
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In 2013, a prominent London cardiologist Aseem Malhotra presented a paper in the British Medical Journal stating that you should IGNORE advice to reduce your saturated fat intake, because it’s actually INCREASING YOUR RISK for obesity and heart disease. This was ground-breaking but went over like a lead balloon with the American Heart Association. Sorry AHA.
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And very recently in March 2014, a new meta-analysis published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, using data from nearly 80 studies and more than a half million people, found that those who consume HIGHER amounts of saturated fat have NO MORE HEART DISEASE than those who consume less. They also did not find less heart disease among those eating higher amounts of unsaturated fat, including both olive oil and corn oil. In other words, vegetable oils are really not perfect, “heart healthy” oils. All of the hype and fear about cholesterol levels being related to your risk of heart disease is just NOT TRUE! Be sure to read these links for yourself!
Please…people, patients, doctors, Romans, countrymen, lend me your wide open ears and stop worrying about your cholesterol levels being “perfectly” low and start eating WHOLE, NATURAL foods rich in fats and cholesterol.
In a past blog post, I spell out exactly how our ancestors used to eat and how our traditional-living neighbors still eat to experience super-human health.
To your Fat Health,
Dr. Robinson
