The US is about to drop its decades-old warning against cholesterol
'Cholesterol is not considered a nutrient of concern for overconsumption.'
Every five years, the United States government updates a set of Dietary Guidelines intended to help its citizens make healthier food choices. These guidelines also help inform how companies package and market their products. The 2015 edition, as noted by The Washington Post , will mark perhaps the biggest change since the original 1977 advice by dropping the warning about cholesterol consumption. One of the six core goals since the 1970s has been to limit the intake of cholesterol to less than 300mg per day, however the present Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) does not believe that cholesterol consumption is something we need to be worried about.
Foods high in cholesterol such as eggs, offal, and seafood have long been considered contributors to the risk of heart disease, however research seeking to establish any causative link between them and undesirable health outcomes has been equivocal. In the absence of a proper scientific consensus and given that the human body produces a lot more cholesterol than it takes in via the diet, the DGAC has decided that "cholesterol is not considered a nutrient of concern for overconsumption." That's not to say that cholesterol is completely innocuous, and having it clog up your arteries is still a threat to heart health, but the amount of it that you consume is no longer thought to be important enough to restrict.
NOBODY'S REALLY SURE ABOUT WHAT THE HEALTHIEST DIET IS;
OR IF SUCH A THING EXISTSThe DGAC is more concerned about the chronic under-consumption of good nutrients, noting that Vitamin D, Vitamin E, potassium, calcium, and fiber are under-consumed across the entire US population . Placing a greater emphasis on pushing people toward healthy choices like nutrient-dense vegetables and away from the villainous duo of sugar and sodium (which are universally over-consumed) is set to be the big focus for the 2015 Dietary Guidelines.
The change in thinking about cholesterol consumption is just part of an evolving body of opinion about the healthiest diet choices. Just this week, a new study of the data available in 1977 concluded that the original Dietary Guidelines were based on inadequate evidence and should never have been issued. The report, authored by an international team of academics led by Zoe Harcombe, was critical of the advice against the consumption of fat, which could, with time, be another area where the DGAC seeks to modify its recommendations. For now, the big change is the removal of the cholesterol warning, which the US departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services are expected to endorse in the final publication of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines later this year.
The US is about to drop its decades-old warning against cholesterol , b y Vlad Savov , The Verge
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Eat reasonably.
Duh.
Interesting article.
What a lot of people don't know, is that a lot of what yourcholesterol levels are, comes from genetics and age. Our own bodies createcholesterol in it's absence, too. It creates morecholesterol as we get older. It is not so much what we eat, as what our DNA says.
And of course, eatsensibly!
Here is what my cardiologist told me, years ago. (paraphrased) There is no direct proof that cholesterol causes heart attacks. Basically, they tested everyone that had a heart attack, and most of them had a high level of cholesterol in their body. But that is a negative study, not a direct causal study.
I have gone through a diet where for 3 months, I ate no cholesterol. Zilch, Zero, NONE. My cholesterol level did NOT go down at all. The cardiologist said that some people make cholesterol, they don't have to ingest it, and he felt that it was primarily due to long term stress, and DNA.
So, I still take Lipitor every night, despite all the crap it does to your body, because it gets my cholesterol levels down to somewhere normalish... The cardiologist is the one that prescribed it, and he said that it would help. Of course nothing really helps that much but the blood pressure medication and the Toprol that keeps my heart from flying out of my chest and landing on the ground, quivering.
It's been 13 years since my heart attack and by-pass and I'm still alive. And I eat just about anything I want. (Can't do grease well, and NO Mexican food. Pretty much anything fried in Coconut oil is out. NOTHING is worth being that sick over.)
My wife watches her cholesterol intake... and has too much. I eat all the goodies... and have low cholesterol.
Life ain't fair!
It's just the way it is... I can't get everything that everybody died of. (Every time I got something, my mother would remark, that killed Uncle Henry, or whoever... It is physically impossible to die of everything that everyone got.)
I, too, have been taking Lipitor for about 15 years on doctor's advice. Now my doctor here in China told me to go easy on the eggs and eat almost no seafood (that doesn't include fish). I don't know if she's aware of the new studies, but I love eggs and seafood and have been deriving myself of the pleasure of eating them. I think I have to balance enjoyment of life as against long life.