The FastDay Forum

I was telling a friend the some benefits of Braggs ACV, so she visits the health food shop in town and comes back with Lecithin. The guy was telling her that he has customers come in with a cholesterol reading of 7 ? and take Lecithin daily - teaspoon or whatever she told me and reduce it to 4 ??? Is a snake oil business man or what. Sounds too easy. It is not to be taken lightly, it does have warnings and interactions according to what I read on the internet. I would love it if it were so, but seriously, can this be?

[carorees]

Since total cholesterol is fairly meaningless in determining whether a person is at risk of heart disease (the best predictor appears to be the ratio of high density lipoprotein to total cholesterol) then if lecithin did lower that person's total cholesterol you still don't know if it was helpful for them. Too much emphasis is being put on cholesterol these days when the tests do not really reflect a person's risk level.

A quick look at the scientific literature shows that studies of the benefits of soy lecithin have given mixed results.

Like most things, I would suggest that its effects depend on the context of your diet.

There are some questions about the quality and contaminants in lecithin supplements and some unpleasant side-effects if too much is taken.

My instinct is that it should be avoided. The best way to improve your heart disease risk is to lose weight and that makes a far bigger difference than any supplement can do.

Maybe @peebles has some thoughts?

I always have thoughts. <G>

The single best way to lower your cholesterol is to cut back on your carbs. As @Carorees said, total cholesterol isn't the culprit in heart disease, though some ratios are predictive of problems. High triglycerides appear to be the most damaging part of cholesterol and though triglycerides are fats found in the blood, eating more carb than you are burning is what raises them. You can eat a very high fat low carb diet, and see your triglycerides drop quite low.

The particle size of your LDL is also predictive, the smaller the particles the more likely to clog arteries and cause trouble. Too few doctors order the lab tests that measure particle size, so just knowing your LDL score isn't always helpful. LDL can go up when you are first dieting on any diet even though over time it will drop on most diets. However, the worst diet for lowering cholesterol tends to be the very high carb fad low fat diets.

But my take on this is that most of the damage to the cardiovascular system that has been attributed to high cholesterol is actually caused by long term exposure to higher than normal blood sugars, blood sugars that are found in a range that is still defined as normal by the big health organizations. Research keeps showing that A1cs over 6% and post-meal 1 hour blood sugar levels over 8.6 mmol/L (155 mg/dl) correlate to early changes in the arteries that turn into heart disease. The battle ship is still very slowly turning around on this issue, but there is a growing body of evidence supporting it.

Beyond that, I feel very strongly that most supplements are a complete waste of money. We would do much better to take the money we waste on them and put it into buying higher quality, unprocessed, pesticide and herbicide free foods.

Sort of related to your question-my husband and I both had blood work done last month (required for our health insurance sigh...), and my husband's came back bad for cholesterol (his numbers have gotten worse every year, for the past three years). I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head, but his total number is high, the good number was really low and the calculation that they do to figure out his risk for heart disease was very high. He also had high blood pressure, for the first time (put him in the prehypertension zone). Sooo, what he's doing now-
D3 vitamin every day
Omega-3 Krill oil pill every day
starting to use products with plant sterols in it (butter/oj so far)
eating 2 ounces of unsalted peanuts everyday
bowl of cheerios every day (slowly introducing whole grains and this was baby step one lol)
He's also 10-15lbs overweight, and he's making a few adjustments to lose the extra weight (6ft tall/190lbs/34yrs old).
We're going to try the above for 6 months and then have him get new blood work/reevaluate.

eta: heart disease runs in his family, so that's probably part of his problem. His glucose number was great though, at an 84, which irked me because it's better than mine now

I don't attempt to understand all the science but this makes for interesting reading, having a husband who was put on statins on account of being diabetic (he came off them as they made him feel so awful). Have never had my cholesterol tested so blissfully unaware........

[Debs]

@Katekat, I had highish blood pressure. In my one woman experiment I have been taking olive leaf extract, garlic tablets and more coconut oil, not sure which one has done it but my BP has dropped consistently.

@Katekat, I had highish blood pressure. In my one woman experiment I have been taking olive leaf extract, garlic tablets and more coconut oil, not sure which one has done it but my BP has dropped consistently.

Thank you! I've been reading about olive oil, but I've never heard of olive leaf extract-will definitely look into that! Garlic tablets would be easy enough to add, though I don't know if I could get him to try coconut oil (maybe I could sneak it into meals somehow though).

[Debs]

Carorees showed me a really interesting graph of natural therapy against evidence, I think it was called snake oil, I'll find the link but there was credible evidence for both olive leaf extract and garlic. I couldn't take it as a liquid as it was foul but the tablets are ok, I take two a night with two garlic. Not too sure about the coconut oil but I am having it as part of a higher fat diet. Will keep you posted!
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/p ... pplements/

Carorees showed me a really interesting graph of natural therapy against evidence, I think it was called snake oil, I'll find the link but there was credible evidence for both olive leaf extract and garlic. I couldn't take it as a liquid as it was foul but the tablets are ok, I take two a night with two garlic. Not too sure about the coconut oil but I am having it as part of a higher fat diet. Will keep you posted!
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/p ... pplements/

thanks!

@caroreesThis is all really helpful, and I will bookmark it and print off when i get into battle with the gp over lipitor. She did say last year if my level didn't go down, actually my number is now 5.9 . She mentioned going on Lipitor; no thanks. Sorry but I am sick of dumb or better, lazy gps that fail each and every time to explain the numbers and what they mean.

I am grateful that you all could explain this to me. I dont put a lot of trust in Gps. On another note of why, they kept telling my husband 11yrs ago at the age of 39 he didn't have cancer cause he was too young. Bullocks, he had testicular cancer and they kept telling him to go home. When husband went back and said he came for another check of groin pain before christmas they look on the pc and said no, no recollection of that visit. It was neatly and nicely taken out of the computer, No trace of that visit and i and he knows he went. Husband is cancer free today, thanks to 12 weeks of heavy chemo.

[carorees]

@KateKat

I just wanted to share this insight about whole grains that @peebles posted on another thread:

The idea that whole grains don't raise blood sugar as much as refined grains is another myth beloved by nutritionists. It hasn't held up to research.

I would add that having normal glucose is not necessarily a sign that you don't have problems with too high insulin production. The weight gain, the high cholesterol and the family history of heart problems all indicates to me that he should be trying to cut down on carbs not adding more. I am not sure that cheerios are a good thing to have for breakfast. They have high amounts of sugar in them according to this list (amount per 100g of cheerios):
Cereals ready-to-eat, GENERAL MILLS, CHEERIOS, Chocolate - Sugar 34.4 g
Cereals ready-to-eat, GENERAL MILLS, APPLE CINNAMON CHEERIOS - Sugar 34.2 g
Cereals ready-to-eat, GENERAL MILLS, Fruity CHEERIOS - Sugar 33.8 g
Cereals ready-to-eat, GENERAL MILLS, HONEY NUT CHEERIOS - Sugar 33.2 g
Cereals ready-to-eat, GENERAL MILLS, CHEERIOS, Banana Nut - Sugar 33.1 g
Cereals ready-to-eat, GENERAL MILLS, FROSTED CHEERIOS - Sugar 32.1 g
Cereals ready-to-eat, GENERAL MILLS, CHEERIOS, Yogurt Burst, strawberry - Sugar 30 g
Cereals ready-to-eat, GENERAL MILLS, Oat Cluster CHEERIOS Crunch - Sugar 27.9 g
Cereals ready-to-eat, GENERAL MILLS, Berry Burst CHEERIOS, Triple Berry - Sugar 27 g
Cereals ready-to-eat, GENERAL MILLS, Multi-Grain Cheerios - Sugar 21 g
(from http://www.dietandfitnesstoday.com/suga ... 0M8XydP.99)

A good starting target carb intake for those who need to cut down and to lose some weight is to get under 100g per day. The total carb content of cheerios is around 75g/100g, so if you have their standard portion size of 30g (but that is actually tiny and most people have at least double that) you would be having a quarter of your carb intake in one bowl of cheerios.

The general point holds - but I'm always interested in the differences in sugar content in such products from one country to another (e.g., some of the UK values are lower than the US ones for the sugar content of the cereals https://www.nestlecereals.co.uk/content ... RangeId=11 ).

Similarly, the salt content, fat content etc. varies - even within 'standardised' products such as McDonalds. Plus, the vitamin/mineral content varies for comparable foodstuffs because some countries (e.g., USA) use fortified flour.

I like the USDA and similar databases for basics (vegetables etc.) but I wish we had a comparable one for Europe/UK that reflects what we eat and the different processing. [/public health whine]

Since Cheerios are almost all starch, my guess is that the European ones are the same as the U.S. ones.

And who eats cereal without milk, which adds another dose of quick digesting carbohydrate.

But there is another problem with starting your day with cereal. We are all at our most insulin resistant when we first wake up in the morning, so the same meal eaten at breakfast will raise blood sugar higher than it would were it eaten later in the day.

Why this is a problem is that surging blood sugar will make us hungry in an hour or two, so when you start with a fast-digesting carb you end up eating more over the rest of the day.