To quote BlueSky - a very smart guy here on DF:
Quote:
As far as eating foods containing cholesterol is concerned, we need to keep this in perspective. The body uses about 2,000 mg of cholesterol a day, for things like making hormones, building tissue, fixing damage and maintaining the nervous system. What you don't get from food, the liver makes. So if you limit your cholesterol intake to 100mg a day, the liver will make the other 1,900 mg to make up the shortfall. If you didn't get cholesterol from any other food, you could eat 8 eggs (at 240mg each) a day, and the liver would only need to make 80mg of the stuff to make up the shortfall. And your serum cholesterol would stay the same. This is certainly in line with my experience. I eat 3 eggs a day and my cholesterol is the same as it was before I started doing this.
The notion that dietary cholesterol increases serum cholesterol levels is an old, very tired, and now discredited theory. It was created by Ancel Keys back in the 50's, based on very dodgy epidemiological research. In the 70's Keys himself acknowledged that dietary cholesterol does not affect serum cholesterol in humans, but the theory persists. It has become part of conventional medical wisdom and is the basis of a $30bn industry (statins). This misconception is being actively perpetuated to protect vested interests. And most doctors simply don't know any better.
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This is borne out by my own experience and that of several others here on DF. I have been eating "very low to zero" carbs since August of last year (2008) and along with no longer feeling hunger all the time, I have lost weight, my BG levels are stable near normal on a third of the insulin I used to use, and my lipids are the best they have been since I started having them tested.
I eat only eggs, bacon, steak, butter, pork chops, sausages, chicken, fish, full-fat mature cheese, full-fat cream, dark chocolate (70% cocoa or higher), nuts, and some green leafy vegetables - mainly plain Romaine lettuce. No sauces other than seasonings (salt, pepper, curry powder, garlic salt, chilli powder) and natural juices.
My latest blood work was taken after a 12 hour fast on the morning of 14th November 2008:
A1c 5.0%
Triglycerides 60.23 mg/dl
HDL-C 42.08 mg/dl
LDL-C 71.43 mg/dl
Total-C 3.24
Total-C/HDL-C Ratio 3.0
Triglycerides/HDL-C Ratio 0.6
