The Truth About Cholesterol and Fat
Low-fat, low-cholesterol diets disrupt hormonal balance
Low-fat, low-cholesterol diets can be very unhealthy, especially for women. Why? Because all our major hormones are made from cholesterol: estrogen, progesterone, cortisol, DHEA, and testosterone. If we don’t eat enough, our bodies divert cholesterol from our endocrine system to use for brain function and repair. When that happens, it’s almost impossible for our bodies to maintain hormonal balance. Hot flashes, here we come!
Low-fat, high-carb diets can raise cholesterol levels
America has been on a low-fat diet for over 30 years. Yet we’re fatter than ever, we have an epidemic of diabetes, and our cholesterol levels are rising, not falling. One key reason is that low-fat diets can actually disrupt our normal endocrine balance. Here’s how.
Cholesterol is so important to the human body that nature has devised a backup plan in the event your diet falls short — i.e., during a famine. When that happens, your liver steps in to make cholesterol to guarantee your body a baseline level. The high levels of insulin that are released in most low-fat, high-carb diets also trigger the body to siphon off excess blood sugar into the liver to make cholesterol and triglycerides (which are used for energy and fat storage).
In its natural, unstressed state your liver makes 75% of the cholesterol you need. The rest you have to eat — in foods that contain cholesterol like butter, meat, whole-fat dairy products, shellfish and eggs.
If you deprive yourself of cholesterol (and make up those calories in carbs and sugar), your metabolism goes into famine mode and your liver overproduces cholesterol to make up the difference and stock up. This overdrive state can’t shut off until you start eating cholesterol again. So, a low-cholesterol, high-carbohydrate diet can actually lead to high cholesterol!
Blood cholesterol levels also respond negatively to emotional stress, perhaps for similar reasons.
Some health practitioners see high cholesterol levels first and foremost as a sign of liver distress. Others think that problems stem more from the oxidization of cholesterol by free radicals than from the presence of cholesterol itself. Both may be true. In any case, that low-fat diet isn’t making you healthier.