The benefits of high cholesterol
We have all heard the claims that a high blood cholesterol level is harmful. We hear and see this message in news bulletins, magazine articles, advertisements for cholesterol-lowering foods, even breakfast cereals, and drugs several times every day. But the evidence refutes these claims.
What is 'high' cholesterol?
Throughout our lives, our bodies manufacture cholesterol. If they didn't we would die. And they make only as much as they need for all the things that require cholesterol. As our bodies are not designed to waste materils and energy, they regulate cholesterol levels strictly to ensure there is enough and no more.
A 1970 textbook which predates the current phobia about cholesterol and the money-grabbing propaganda of the pharmaceutical industry, listed the then current 'normal' levels of cholesterol. It was intresting to note that what was consiidred 'normal' was related to age: cholesterol rose as we got older, and the top of the 'normal' range for a person aged 50 was 350mg/dL (9.0mmol/l).
So a 'high' cholesterol level is obviously higher than this, isn't it?
Not according to the drugs industry. They reckon that everyone, no matter what age and what sex, should all have the same cholesterol level. And that is utter nonsense!
- High cholesterol protects against all the conditions caused by low cholesterol
- High cholesterol means greater life expectancy — The oldest people in care homes are the ones with high cholesterol.
- High cholesterol even protects against heart disease risk
There is a growing amount of evidence for a hypothesis that the first step in the formation of atherosclerosis is an inflammatory response to some injury of the arterial wall caused by damage to that wall, perhaps by an infectious bacterium or virus.
Low levels of cholesterol harm the body's immune system.
Putting these two factors together shows how a high cholesterol level could actually protect against the atherosclerosis which is thought to lead to a heart attack.
This would also explain why, although most heart attacks and strokes are seen after the age of 60, studies of the elderly find that those with higher cholesterol have fewer heart attacks than those with low cholesterol.
