keep up the good fight,

Richard

In this context one can easily see why the BHF dietary advice is to fill up on carbs. Their entire section on healthy eating is contrary to the evidence on weight loss and CVD prevention.

Sadly, the great British diet and general attitude to taking little responsibility for ones health is underwritten and promoted by the producers and endorsers of toxic junk……and I have little optimism that this will change.

How right you are, and isn’t it all too easily overlooked that cholesterol is itself a sterol, but it is evidently a sterol with a distinction and a distinguished place in biology, generally embraced by the biology and physiology of the ‘fleshy’ species, while the photosynthesising and ‘leafy’ species residing in the lower echelons of the food chain have little need of cholesterol and make do with less sophisticated plant sterols.

Cholesterol is the primary foundation molecule from which the steriodal hormones are formed, and the sex hormones of mammals and ‘us’ all belong to the class of steriodal hormones. so the distinction between run of the mill plant serols and cholesterol could be a component of any explanation as to why mammals, perhaps, have more interesting – certainly more ‘satisfying’ – sex lives than your average cabbage.

Our relationship with cholesterol is almost certainly one we ought to class as adaptive, which is why dietary cholesterol can be passed from guts to body. The fact that our guts tend to reject plant sterols and stanols to have them passed out with stools suggests that the relationship with plant serols and stanols is maladaptive.

The makers of these so-called functional foods with added stanols and sterols claim they work becuase some of the dietary cholesterol that would other wise be absorbed is rejected and passed out with the stools in asscoiation with sterols or stanols. The claims are that plant sterols and stanols tend to block the absorbtion of cholesterol. The discriminating aspect of this gives the clue to the lie.

The guts discriminate because we do not have an especially adaptive relationship with plant sterols or stanols, but we have such an adaptive and agreeable relationship with cholesterol that we can sythesize all the cholesterol we need even if there is none present in the diet. The greater majority o cells can synthesise cholesterol, although the cells of the liver are deeply involved in the synthesisng, cycling, and recycling of cholesterol.

The structural integrity and stability of cell memebranes matters, for one they are strikingly comprised of lipophiles (fats) which helps to contain an otherwise predominantly hydrophilic environement within. Second memebranes muist be flexible and semi-permeable sotheat they can permit passage of the things (metabolites etc) that should pass through the membrane, while denying passsage to the things that should not. The degree of permeability is a balance of homestatsis in one sense and dynamic in another, and it is crucial to well-being and orderly function. If any lipids or lipophillic types undermine this integrity and stability resident in the membrane(s) the security of the cell(s) is(are) placed under significant risk and threat.

At the end of the Abstract, it states that “These results suggest that the fatty acid profile of vegetable oils plays no important role on the life span of SHRSP rat. However, phytosterols
in the dietary oils and in liver and brain were inversely correlated with the mean survival times,indicating that the differential effects of vegetable oils might be ascribed, at least
partly, to their different phytosterol contents.

The phytosterols seems to affect the red blood cell membrane stability. Makes sense since cholesterol is the preferred sterol when building RBCs.

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjgBLwH3Wc

At first I couldn’t believe that the BHF was recommending a potentially dangerous product. Nor could I believe that they are in cahoots with Unilever. However, a little googling revealed that your claims are, indeed, correct.

“In combination with a balanced diet, eating foods that provide you with 2-2.5g of plant sterols or stanols every day can have an additional cholesterol-lowering benefit.”
http://www.bhf.org.uk/heart-matters-online/march-april-2013/medical/ask-the-experts/stanols-and-sterols.aspx

and,

“The good news is that we’ve teamed up with Flora pro.activ to raise awareness of heart disease amongst women and get more women thinking about how they can help reduce their risk with simple lifestyle changes such as lowering cholesterol through diet.

As part of our partnership Flora pro.activ will donate £750,000 over the next three years in support of our life-saving work.”
http://www.bhf.org.uk/get-involved/how-your-company-can-help/flora-proactiv.aspx

The BHF needs to be sued.

Janet Mitchell may be correct about them targetting the fairer sex who may do most of the shopping and who may make the decisions about what goes in the cart, but I think women now represent a maleable market for the vendors to traget. Their minds have been massaged for around two decades now, by print media that delights in dishing out nonsensical advice.

From a commercial perspective the makers of this cr4p see the market for males as being mature, whereas the market for women is less mature and has greater scope for development.

The BHF and Peter Weissberg have now overlooked former medical perceptions about women and the reduced risk of heart disease, and they have done so in their enthusaims for talking up the market for ‘prevention’, be that for cholesterol lowering pharmacuticals or cholesterol reducing functional foods.

I’ll make a prediction. If women heed this advice in increasing numbers and become more cholesterol aware then the outcomes will be increased incidence of cancers, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimers, and other conditions in females. The other health ‘charities’ stand to gain from this too.

Go for it. You are the future.