Dr. McDougall's Online Discussion Board

http://drmirkin.com/nutrition/how-red-m ... -risk.html

Here is an article from dr. Mirkin's website today. It illustrates to me what we are up against if we are trying to convince much loved family members to eat a whole food, plant based diet.

You will notice that 70 percent of those who are given two eggs per day show no rise in cholesterol. I believe this. Because since only about 2 per cent or less of the population is vegan, never mind fat free vegan, that seventy percent of the population is surely scarfing down bacon and roast beef and stuffed crust cheese pizzas. Of course their cholesterol would hardly move at an additional two eggs. And if you are one of the thirty percent of SAD eating people who do show a rise, how would you know if you are one of these unless you are the subject of a study?

He also says that cholesterol can't cause blockage unless there is first a hole in the artery which causes bleeding, then a clot. Then cholesterol can do the damage. He doesn't say what causes the initial injury. But it seems to me that if your arteries are injured it is better to reduce cholesterol in the diet to zero. And if cholesterol doesn't cause damage then why prescribe statins?

I am speculating that once doctors are familiar with the idea that TMAO causes damage and that antibiotics destroy the bacteria causing the damage, they will be besieged by the pharmaceutical companies to provide antibiotics for all their meat eating patients. Far fetched?

you might pick up other things in the article that aren't quite right.

didi

In the end, we all reap what we sow. I pray that God has mercy on those who are still deceived or in rebellion about nutrition and health truths.

The function of that nasty LDL is to repair that "hole" and make sure it does cause further problems. There is no such thing as bad cholesterol. What we have to look to is what caused the hole not what mechanisms the body uses to repair the damage.

So are you saying that unless we eat cholesterol loaded food and saturated fats that we will not have enough cholesterol to fix the hole?

Why have the autopsied bodies of young soldiers from asian countries on a very low animal food diet not shown the artery damage that the bodies of young western men have shown? Both have bodies that manufacture their own cholesterol.

Why, once enough damage has been done to cause serious illness and artery blockage, can eliminating animal foods and fats halt or maybe reverse the damage, reduce or eliminate angina pain and extend life?

I am waiting to see a study similar to Esselstyn's in which a group of heart patients who have unstable angina, who are candidates for stents and bypasses etc. eat a high cholesterol, fat and animal protein diet and improve their health within about a month of eating the low carb way.

didi

The body makes all the cholesterol we need. We don't have to eat the stuff.

Cholesterol is used to patch up holes in the body like spackle patches up the hole you punched in your living room wall. Keep punching holes in the wall and no amount of spackle will keep the wall from collapsing. The question is what is causing the holes? And the answer is inflammation from saturated fat and hydrogenated fats, arachidonic acid from animal products and oils high in omega-6 fatty acids, and the "wrong" gut bacteria producing TMAO in the gut. All of these factors become moot on a LFPB diet.

Kate