314: Chris Masterjohn On The Health Benefits Of Cholesterol

Fricken Brilliant!!!

It’s wonderful to see Chris MasterJohn featured here. I’ve been reading his work for years. He is an outstanding researcher and scientist.

It took far too long for the truth about hydrogenated fats to come out, so I hope it won’t be much longer for the truth about cholesterol and animal fats to be mainstream too.

I feel very sad when I think about my grandmother who had heart disease and was told by doctors to substitute dairy products and eggs with various soy and vegetable oil products. That was in the 70s and 80s when the misinformation was rampant – when eggs were depicted as almost evil.

In a word, Carl…SUGAR…defined as carbohydrates that set off a metabolic chain reaction of events that makes LDL and triglycerides go berserk!

Most excellent and informative podcast, Jimmy & Chris! Thanks so much!

The politics and self-promotion going on in the research, medical and scientific community as discussed here, by Taubes and others is just downright infuriating – but more than that, the fact that the general public does not even seem to care about it when the information is put in front of them.

Wow! This was my favorite podcast yet. Thanks so much for bringing Chris Masterjohn to us. I’ve read his articles, but it so much easier to understand when he explains it.

Great job and I’m heading over right now to donate to help keep this podcast alive. What a valuable resource!

Great interview! I might add one tidbit about a problem with Ancel Keys’ research that a doctor pointed out – not only did he cherry pick the countries in his chart, but those countries with higher fat intake also had higher sugar intake, which correlates nicely with heart disease. And also we’re seeing the reasons why sugar is one of the real culprits!

[Note: this comment was reworded to clarify certain copyright matters. There is no substantive change in meaning due to these edits.]

Just listened again to this interview. If Chris’ metaphors were a bit tricky to understand, here’s something I found that helped (from http://bit.ly/alru7L):
People will often talk about cholesterol without mentioning either LDL or HDL. It is important to know what is specifically meant. The term “Cholesterol” is usually used to refer to LDL because HDL doesn’t have much cholesterol. Also, cholesterol isn’t just freely floating around in the blood supply. For everything cholesterol does -making hormones, vitamin D, bile, cell membranes, and even brain tissue – it relies on LDL to carry it. Somehow, medical terminology now refers to LDL as “bad cholesterol” under the belief that elevated cholesterol is caused by the over-production of LDL in the liver. The harm that is being laid on the shoulders of LDL rightly should be ascribed to the action of Free Radicals.

Here’s an appropriate quote from http://www.actualcures.com/heart-disease-cholesterol-doesnt-cause-plaque-buildup/ “It doesn’t matter whether an oxidized LDL molecule contains cholesterol or jelly beans, when a molecule of LDL becomes oxidized by free radicals and the oxidized LDL molecule comes in contact with an artery wall, the oxidized LDL damages the artery wall and the body will repair the damage. Reducing the number of LDL molecules with statins leaves the same number of free radicals to oxidize fewer LDL molecules, increasing each cell’s chance of being damaged by an oxidized LDL molecule. Fortunately antioxidants neutralize free radicals.”