Lowering Your Cholesterol May Not Prevent Heart Disease By Michael Dworkin, PD, CCN, & J. Erika Dworkin


In the “old” days LDL was considered “bad” cholesterol... HDL, on the other hand, was traditionally believed to be “good” cholesterol... The problem is, we now know that there are at least fi ve different types of LDL and several different types of HDL, and not all of them behave the same way. ~ Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS - Good Health Lifestyles (Winter 2017) Co-Author With Stephen Sinatra, MD, FACC, The Great Cholesterol Myth: Why Lowering Your Cholesterol Won’t Prevent Heart Disease – And the Statin-Free Plan That Will


you? Have you been experiencing any of these potential side effects of statin drugs: low energy; depression; memory loss; high blood sugar/diabetes; muscle weakness, pain, or fatigue; sexual dysfunc- tion/low libido; or signs of cancer? If so, now is a good time to learn more about the role of cholesterol in the body, the true causes of heart disease, and natural means of preventing it through diet, life- style choices, and dietary supplements.


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The REAL Important Facts About Preventing Heart Disease The CDC reports that heart disease is the leading cause of death for people of most ethnicities in the United States. Unfortu- nately, contrary to the views of many medical experts and scientifi c evidence that was conveniently ignored for political expediency, conventional medicine, the USDA, and the American Heart Associa- tion, continue to follow the same entrenched cholesterol-fat-heart health guidelines established in the 1980s.


Fortunately, to the benefi t of a fast-aging America, integrative


medical practitioners have been calling for a re-examination of the scientifi c studies in order to get traditional medical opinion to turn the corner toward a more accurate, updated approach to heart health. In the early 1970s, when my peers viewed good nutrition as secondary to maintaining good health and mocked dietary supple- ments as ineffective, I regularly chatted with Dr. Stephen Sinatra (board-certifi ed cardiologist, American College of Nutrition fellow, and former Manchester practitioner) to share what I was learning from the scientifi c literature about clinical nutrition. Dr. Sinatra was just then beginning to explore preventive medicine, but has since become one of this country’s top integrative cardiologists and a leader of this uphill climb. Below are some of the well-substan-


16 Natural Nutmeg - March 2017


re you concerned about preventing heart disease? Are you taking a statin drug (such as Lipitor, Zocor, Crestor) to man- age your high cholesterol because you think that will protect


tiated key points from The Great Cholesterol Myth: Why Lowering Your Cholesterol Won’t Prevent Heart Disease – And the Statin-Free Plan That Will, the thoroughly documented, layman-friendly book he recently co-authored with Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS. I have also added a few of my own points, but much of the information from the book has provided the foundation of my clinical nutrition prac- tice over the past two decades:


Cholesterol: Life can’t go on without it. Almost every cell, the liver, and brain (accounts for 25% of


all cholesterol in the body) manufacture it, and enzymes convert it to vitamin D, steroid hormones [sex hormones (estrogen, proges- terone, testosterone), stress hormones (adrenaline, cortisol, norepi- nephrine)], and bile salts for fat digestion and detoxifi cation. The membranes surrounding cells and the structures within them consist largely of cholesterol. Only oxidized cholesterol threatens good health because it sticks to arterial walls and causes infl ammation, the true cause of heart disease. Otherwise, the body uses non-dam- aged cholesterol to combat infectious toxins.


Conventional doctors’ outdated focus on lowering LDL (“bad”)


cholesterol and raising HDL (“good”) cholesterol is misguided and dangerous. More recent science has shown that there are subtypes of LDL and HDL that do not all have the same impact on heart health:


1. LDL-A: preferred big, fl uffy molecules 2. LDL-B: atherogenic small, hard, dense molecules more likely to become oxidized 3. HDL-2: anti-infl ammatory, large, buoyant 4. HDL-3: poorly understood, potentially pro-infl ammatory, small, dense. Moreover, aggressive lowering of LDL does not even reduce arterial calcifi ed plaque.


When evaluating a patient’s cardiovascular health, doctors should conduct at least some of these key tests:


1. LDL Particle Size (Optimal: pattern A profi le) 2. hs-CRP (Optimal: .8mg/dL): an infl ammation marker directly associated with overall heart and cardiovascular health 3. Interleukin – 6 (Optimal: less than 12.0 pg/mL): a precursor to CRP that provides an earlier warning of infl ammation 4. Serrum Ferritin (Ideal: Women < 80 mg/L – Men < 90 mg/L): stored iron in the blood is highly prone to oxidation


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