There’s one sure way to make cholesterol dangerous — avoid saturated fats

Are you eating enough of this “forbidden food” to avoid a heart attack?

What REALLY makes cholesterol dangerous?

Saturated fats.

No — it’s not the EATING of saturated fats that causes problems.

The trouble starts when you AVOID saturated fats.

Keeping it fluffy

When you think of cholesterol, think of snow. Or rather a snowball.

When LDL is light and “fluffy,” you have nothing to worry about. In fact, this type of cholesterol is actually good for your arteries.

But if LDL is packed and dense, it’s as dangerous as a frozen snowball.

Of course, you don’t hear conventional heart docs talk about LDL density too much. They’re so brainwashed by the “lower the better” mantra, they’d rather just give you a statin and hope that will make everything better.

Aseem Malhotra doesn’t go for that at all.

Here, he may not be a household name, but across the pond in the UK, Dr. Malhotra is a respected cardiologist. But unlike other heart docs, he regularly rails against the dogma of the medical mainstream he’s a part of.

Last week, he sounded off in the British Medical Journal, making these two stunning points…

1) Patients with high LDL are told to cut saturated fats from their diets. But that’s a tragic mistake. Take away saturated fats and the fluffy LDL disappears. Meanwhile, the small, dense (and dangerous) LDL increases.

2) Dr. Malhotra cites research that shows heart disease risk has a MUCH stronger link to metabolic syndrome/pre-diabetes than to high total cholesterol.

So heart disease has two culprits: Not eating enough saturated fats, and eating too much food with simple carbs and added sugars.

And it’s a vicious cycle… Usually when people stop eating saturated fats, they end up increasing their carbs and sugars. They’re told they’re on the road to health. But it’s the road to ruin.

I don’t know how Dr. Malhotra came to prominence knocking the party line like he does. But I hope his colleagues and all their patients are listening — on BOTH sides of the Atlantic.

Sources:
“Time to end the war against saturated fat?” Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times, 10/22/13, latimes.com