I've been thinking about this subject this morning, as there is another thread where someone asks for advice. I was wondering (and it's just my thoughts, nothing more than that) why some people's cholesterol go up when they have extra dairy fats and sat fats and others don't. Is it because these fats contain cholesterol? Or is it perhaps that these people have a mild dairy intolerance which then increases inflammation in the body and causes the body to produce more cholesterol to protect from the resulting extra inflamation caused by the intolerance? So when dairy intake is reduced then the inflammation and cholesterol levels both go down?
Like I said, just thinking aloud, don't mind me, while I'm asking this question here I am giving my poor hubby a rest from what he calls my 'What if?....syndrome'
Not a bad question at all. as there must be some mechanism that differs from person to person. I did read a very learned treatise on the endocrine system where it discussed the role of cholesterol in its journey fron Chylomicron , VLDL.LDL trigs to HDL and VLDL and exit. This paper also dealt with the role of enzymes in this process. Now each of us has different flora and fauna in our guts, so we all digest things in different ways. This may answer to the why me? question above.
Once the cholesterol is manufactured by the body, then each packet is given a 'delivery note' which describes to the receptors what status the cholesterol is in . such as Type, full.empty, new, too old etc. This is a chemical signalling system at the molcular level and is unique to each of us. These tags control how the cholesterol is used. The tags will only connect with receptors requesting that tag, and everything else is ignored. So alien cholesterol made outside the body will not match with the bodies signals, and will be ignored.
However, some external cholesterol is broken up and useful bits recycled, and in so doing acquire a compatible tag, so we cannot say cholesterol in fats is ignored, it just becomes re-badged.
There is a good write up on Wikipedia on saturated fats that acknowledges both the current low fat advice and the new LCHF findings since 2014,
The British Heart Foundation has recently added the following to their website, but they still maintain the Eatwell stance of High Carb Low (not saturated ) Fats in moderation, which is current /NICE and NHS thinking.
At the moment UK guidelines encourage us to swap saturated fats for unsaturated fats. You might have seen reports about a study we helped to fund which suggests there’s not enough evidence to back the current UK guidelines on the types of fat we eat. We think more research is needed before suggesting any major changes to healthy eating guidance
Everyman and his dog is spouting that saturated fat increases cholesterol, but none say why or how this statement came about. May be someone can provide a relevant study that demonstrates this, (other than Ancel Keys, please) I lost my bookmark to the endocrine research, so not sure if it discussed this. As I pointed out earlier, recent thinking on a high fat diet says this is not unexpected, and recent studies are showing that TC is no longer a good indicator for CVD ( as stated by the BHF chairman recently)
