Sadly there is and continues to be a lot of misinformation spread about cholesterol.

Contrary to what you might think it is not all coming from Big Pharmacy and their misleading commercials, although that remains a source.

The FDA recently sent a letter of warning to the manufacturers of Crestor who in a TV commercial apparently claimed their drug was safer than they could actually ba

This kind of shenanigans will continue as long as billions of dollars are at stake.

However, many of the culprits in this scenario are the Alternative Medicine Gurus who while they are educated and bright people, are not above leaving important points out of their articles on cholesterol.

The favorite darling of most gurus is the "Too Low a Cholesterol is bad for you Argument".

This gets batted around a lot these days and I have received several emails on the subject I the past few weeks which means...they're at it again!

Now I cannot debate the fact that too low a cholesterol may indeed be bad for you but in all honesty that level is pretty darn low and far below the National Cholesterol Education Programs (henceforth NCEP!) guidelines.

Here are the facts.

* Cholesterol is an essential molecule in the body used to manufacture all of the sex hormones and many other substances in the body. For instance it is an essential part of all cell membranes especially those found in the brain and central nervous system.

* There are studies that show that below 160 for the total cholesterol death and sickness rates do go up. BUT!!!!!

* In these studies there is absolutely no consideration for the disease states of the patients in the first place. As a matter of fact there was actually no new patients examined, this study was one of those infamous "meta analysis" types which means it was computer generated from existing data.

* This type of study is fraught with all kinds of problems. Case in point: Cancer severely lowers many peoples cholesterol. If you start looking at all populations in the Western World with cholesterols below 100 you are preselecting out a lot of people with cancer and other disease, and of course their death and sickness rates are going to be much higher than those people who don't have cancer. In the studies the Alternative Health Guru's site this fact is conveniently left out in order to make their point or sell their product.

* Not surprisingly the lower you go the more people die, because the more very sick people were included in this study.

* This type of study was also the same type used to analyze the result s of Vitamin E supplementation that recently caused so much concern.

* Medical Science loves these studies because they can prove or disprove just about anything by including the "proper data" in the meta analysis. As they say," Garbage in Garbage out!"

Now we get into some of my personal opinions that many of you have been reading in my stuff for years now. It seems that slowly but surely, other folks are beginning to jump on the bandwagon and write books about Fish Oil and Inflammation etc.

Cholesterol is simply a potential marker for heart disease. It is on the tip of everyone's tongue these days (including doctors and especially cardiologists) because of a well funded clever campaign of advertising and scientific data generated but the Drug Industry Giants.

Simply put they have drugs to treat it so they are going to sell the problem as well as the drugs.

Here is another fact for you. The actual incidence of heart disease has been going down since the early 1960's long before the advent of the statin drugs.

At this point there is no data that I know of that shows a population based decline in heart disease since the advent of these drugs.

Let me state that more plainly: No one has shown that heart disease has declined more since the advent of the Statin drugs than it would have had it followed the natural trend.

In other words no one has proven that these drugs have impacted public health in a meaningful way. And the number of people that have to be on these drugs and the amount of money that has to be spent to prevent just one heart attack is ASTRONOMICAL!

Contrast that with Fish Oil whose benefits have been shown in large scale studies to be MORE powerful than any drug or drug combination known to man at this time in preventing heart attack.

No other supplement has received the endorsement of both the American Cancer society and the American Heart Association.

Here is another fact for you that I have been yelling about for a long time and again it's slowly getting to be mainstream.

HDL (good) is more important or at least as important than LDL (bad) cholesterol.

Once again because we have drugs to treat bad and not good cholesterol the Big Drug companies don't want you to know this fact. When a drug becomes available for good cholesterol as well what you will hear is, "OK well Now they are both important!"

The champions of Niacin will be heard in the background as well. AS I pointed out in any earlier email I have been disappointed in Prescription Niacin. I have found it hard to use in the doses that are supposed to give results because of side effects.

I have found that in my patients my Fish Oil produces a nice rise in HDL in most of them, with few if any side effects.

All of this and fish Oil helps prevent Alzheimer's and other memory loss problems, stroke, arthritis, lung disease including asthma and cystic fibrosis, all kinds of gut problems and since its found in sperm and often improves hormonal balance and hormonal response, may help support male sexual function.

Finally I want to tell you a few more truths. In these cases my opinion is also supported by scientific literature as well.

Red Rice Yeast has a very mild effect on Cholesterol. I have found that Red Yeast Rice drops people's bad cholesterol about 10 to 15points by itself. This is simply not enough to get the kind of numbers that most people are after.

I have found it useful in combination with other agents to lower a person's cholesterol naturally. It is one of the 4 ingredients in DR Dave's Best Cholesterol Bomb and as such makes a valuable contribution to the power of the compound.

To date Cholesterol Bomb has achieved drops in bad cholesterol of as much as 60 points.*

* Gugglipids do not work! In a study sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania, a with no funding from anyone else (in other words, no financial bias!) this Aruveydic cholesterol remedy actually increase bad cholesterol and dropped good.

* Now before all of you Guggulipid fans write in to tell my how offensive this data is, I am aware that Aruveydic theory is not based on numbers and that this compound may have other benefits that we do not recognize or that are not related to cholesterol. I am just telling you what the study said.

* Policosanol does not work. I used this compound for 2 years in practice and never saw more than 10 points drop in bad cholesterol. The argument goes that only Cuban Policosanol works and we can't get it due to the embargo. Also Big Pharmacy would never let people challenge their death grip on this industry so we may never know!

Ok that's enough about cholesterol Just a reminder that when the numbers were crunched fish Oil whipped the butts of the statin drugs as far as preventing heart disease. Fish Oil has none of the deadly side effects associated with statin drugs and may support healthy memory, brain function, joint function and lung health.

It also seems to have solid benefits in sexual functions.

It remains an essential element for anyone who wants to stay young, smart, sexy, and healthy!

* Dr Dave's Best Cholesterol Bomb is now available on the website.

References:

J Am Coll Nutr. 2004 Dec;23(6 Suppl):616S-20S. Related Articles, Links

The canadian experience: why Canada decided against an upper limit for cholesterol.

McDonald BE.

Department of Human Nutritional Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3T 2N2. bmcdon@ms.umanitoba.ca. the extensive data showing that there is little relationship between dietary cholesterol intake and cardiovascular mortality. In addition, it was pointed out that for most healthy individuals, endogenous synthesis of cholesterol by the liver adjusts to the level of dietary cholesterol intake. Educating health professionals about the relatively weak association between dietary cholesterol and the relatively strong association between serum cholesterol and saturated fat and trans fats helped keep consumers informed about healthy diets and ways to control blood cholesterol.

Curr Opin Cardiol. 2003 Jul;18(4):295-300. Related Articles, Links

The effects of LDL reduction and HDL augmentation on physiologic and inflammatory markers.

Kuvin JT, Karas RH.

Department of Medicine, Tufts-New England Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts 02111, USA.

Cholesterol plays an important role in atherogenesis. Oxidized low-density lipoprotein cholesterol is harmful to arteries whereas high-density lipoprotein cholesterol appears to have beneficial properties on vascular function. There is increasing evidence that inflammation is also involved in the atherogenic process. Inflammation accelerates atherosclerosis and promotes thrombogenesis, and inflammatory biomarkers have been correlated with cardiovascular risk. There is now evidence that lowering low-density lipoprotein and raising high-density lipoprotein cholesterol have beneficial effects on inflammation that might contribute to the reduction in clinical cardiovascular events with currently available lipid-altering therapies. New therapeutic strategies are being designed to inhibit specific aspects of the inflammatory system that contribute to the initiation and progression of atherosclerosis.

About the Author

Dr Dave founded his online health supplement company in Nov of 2002 in order to answer the growing need for high quality nutritional supplements and supplement solutions to the vast array of problems that Dr Dave sees on a daily basis, and to provide anti-aging information to the public in an understandable format.

While initially just meant for his patients, the almost overnight success and positive feedback from his patients made it clear to