Take a Closer Look at Homocysteine
The health promoting community over the past many years has basically gone nuts over cholesterol. It has been painted up as the big bad killer from improper dietary habits. The basic message has been to keep your cholesteral levels low, or die!
Well, as with most very one-eyed views, this has been a significant distortion of reality. Yes, it is wise to maintain healthful levels of blood lipids (all the fats in your bloodstream) including an appropriate HDL to LDL ratio. (Just so we're clear, those abbreviations stand for high density lipoproteins and low density lipoproteins.) But eliminating cholesterol is both very unhealthy and ultimately impossible.
Why unhealthy and impossible? Simple: your body actually manufactures cholesterol in the liver, because it is needed. Eliminating it completely from the diet will generally lower your levels but you can't eliminate cholesterol completely, since you make it yourself.
It is this actual need for cholesterol that has always made me a bit suspicious about claims it was like poison and especially suspicious of the drugs pharmaceutical companies rolled out to destroy, eliminate or reduce cholesterol, called statins. The research evidence on statins is clear enough. In very basic terms, they:
In any event, growing interest is being shown in homocysteine. This substance may actually be far more implicated in heart disease, and other disease, than cholesterol. It will take quite a while for the "machinery" to swing behind reducing homocysteine like it has cholesterol, but I predict it will indeed happen.
Well, as with most very one-eyed views, this has been a significant distortion of reality. Yes, it is wise to maintain healthful levels of blood lipids (all the fats in your bloodstream) including an appropriate HDL to LDL ratio. (Just so we're clear, those abbreviations stand for high density lipoproteins and low density lipoproteins.) But eliminating cholesterol is both very unhealthy and ultimately impossible.
Why unhealthy and impossible? Simple: your body actually manufactures cholesterol in the liver, because it is needed. Eliminating it completely from the diet will generally lower your levels but you can't eliminate cholesterol completely, since you make it yourself.
It is this actual need for cholesterol that has always made me a bit suspicious about claims it was like poison and especially suspicious of the drugs pharmaceutical companies rolled out to destroy, eliminate or reduce cholesterol, called statins. The research evidence on statins is clear enough. In very basic terms, they:
- don't significantly reduce the risk of death from heart attacks,
- don't extend longevity in post heart attack patients, and
- do result in assorted unwanted side effects.
In any event, growing interest is being shown in homocysteine. This substance may actually be far more implicated in heart disease, and other disease, than cholesterol. It will take quite a while for the "machinery" to swing behind reducing homocysteine like it has cholesterol, but I predict it will indeed happen.
posted by Dr Peter Tylee at
11:14 am
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