Cholesterol – Do you have the wrong perspective? | A Different Perspective | August 12, 2023

This week, on A Different Perspective, Dr. Jesse busts some common cholesterol myths – what it does, do HDL and LDL really live up to the titles of “good cholesterol” and “bad cholesterol” that we’ve given them, and why we have a wrong understanding of what your cholesterol ratio really means?

Dr. Jesse walks you back to when the idea that cholesterol causes heart disease started to become a widely-known fact, and why the studies that led to that were faulty. What might have compromised Dr. Mark Helgsted and Ansel Key’s studies, and how does the Honolulu heart study contradict it?

Dr. Jesse points out that our body needs cholesterol so much that our liver makes the majority of it that is in our bodies. We hear so much talk about dietary cholesterol, but that makes up – at most – 20% of the cholesterol in our bodies.

Dr. Jesse also talks about the following cholesterol topics:

-- Cholesterol is needed to make steroid hormones, which means suppressing cholesterol means suppressing your sex and adrenal hormones, among many other body functions – including repair and brain development. Is lack of cholesterol leading to anxiety, depression, and even multiple sclerosis and dementia?

-- We, at The Wellness Way, do want to see that your cholesterol is at a normal level. This, however, is not because we’re afraid you’re going to have a heart attack, and the normal level of cholesterol isn’t necessarily what the medical world tells you it is.

-- What causes cholesterol to go down, other than statins? You might be surprised!

Dr. Jesse points out that so many of us are told “if you don’t take this pill, you’ll die,” when it comes to statins. Who’d say no to that? But it’s actually not that simple when it comes to cholesterol. For example, did you know that taking statins decreases your body’s ability to make coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), and that a deficiency of CoQ10 has been shown to lead to heart disease?

So does that mean that taking statins increases your chances of heart disease? Yes!