Dietary Guidelines: “Eat as Little Dietary Cholesterol as Possible”
Why do the official federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend limiting the intake of dietary cholesterol (found mostly in eggs) as much as possible?
In its landmark report on trans fat, The National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine, one of our most prestigious institutions, concluded that no amount of trans fat is safe “because any incremental increase in trans fatty acid intake increases C[oronary] H[eart] D[isease] risk.”
Heart disease is the number-one reason we and most of our loved ones will die. According to William C. Roberts, editor in chief of the American Journal of Cardiology, the only critical risk factor for atherosclerotic plaque buildup is cholesterol, specifically elevated LDL cholesterol in our blood. Indeed, LDL is called “bad” cholesterol, because it’s the vehicle by which cholesterol is deposited into our arteries. Autopsies of thousands of young accident victims have shown that the level of cholesterol in the blood was closely correlated with the amount of atherosclerosis in their arteries. To drastically reduce LDL cholesterol levels, we need to drastically reduce our intake of three things: trans fat, which comes from processed foods and naturally from meat and dairy; saturated fat, found mainly in animal products and junk foods; and to a lesser extent dietary cholesterol, found exclusively in animal-derived foods, especially eggs.
The three boosters of bad cholesterol—the number-one risk factor for our number-one killer—all stem from eating animal products and processed junk. This likely explains why populations living on traditional diets revolving around whole plant foods have largely remained free from the epidemic of heart disease.
What’s more, the trans fats naturally found in meat and dairy could be causing an inflammatory response in our bodies. Researchers have found that a significant percentage of the fat under the skin of those who ate meat, or even just dairy and eggs, was composed of trans fats, whereas those who had been on a strictly whole-food, plant-based diet had no detectable trans fat in their tissues.
For substantiation of any statements of fact from the peer-reviewed medical literature, please see the associated videos below.
Why do the official federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend limiting the intake of dietary cholesterol (found mostly in eggs) as much as possible?
I answer some common questions I’ve been asked about cholesterol and diabetes, such as “What is the ideal LDL?” “What’s going on when someone eats healthfully but their glucose is still out of control?”
Is the role of cholesterol in heart disease settled beyond a reasonable doubt?
How was England able to so successfully lower sodium intake, which was accompanied by dramatic drops in stroke and heart disease deaths?
What foods should we eat and avoid to reduce our risk of Afib?
Big Meat downplays the magnitude of meat mortality.
How legitimate is the common corporate criticism of the scientific nutrition literature that the credibility of observational studies is questionable?
What was the secret to the public health community’s triumph when past attempts to regulate the food industry failed?
Why are nuts associated with decreased mortality, but not peanut butter?
Rectal biopsies taken before and after eating meat determine the potentially DNA-damaging dose of heme.
Laboratory models suggest that extreme doses of heme iron may be detrimental, but what about the effects of nutritional doses in humans? A look at heme’s carcinogenic effects.
What happens when you compare the trans fats, saturated fat, sodium, and cholesterol levels in plant-based versus animal-based burgers?
Acne can be triggered in one in ten people who get vitamin B12 injections.
How can we explain the drop in stroke risk as the Japanese diet became Westernized by eating more meat and dairy?
Does eating fish or taking fish oil supplements reduce stroke risk?
What’s the best type of pots and pans to use?
What to eat and what to avoid to lower the cardiovascular disease risk factor lipoprotein(a).
Like the tobacco industry adding extra nicotine, the food industry employs taste engineers to accomplish a similar goal: maximize the irresistibility of their products.
Is the link between chocolate and acne due to the sugar, the milk, or the cocoa in chocolate? Researchers put white chocolate, dark chocolate, baking chocolate, and cocoa powder to the test to find out.
What are the effects of dairy products, sugar, and chocolate on the formation of pimples?
In this video, I explain my traffic light system for ranking the relative healthfulness of Green Light vs. Yellow Light vs. Red Light foods.
After the trans fat oil ban, the only remaining major sources of trans fat will be from meat and dairy.
The food industry fought tooth and nail to retain partially hydrogenated oils, even though they were killing 50,000 Americans a year.
Diabetics suffering from nerve pain for years are cured within days with a plant-based diet.
If copper is associated with Alzheimer’s disease, what about healthy, whole plant food sources such as nuts, seeds, beans, and whole grains?
The tobacco industry has focused more recently on divide-and-conquer strategies to create schisms within the tobacco control movement. We in the healthy food community can learn from this by staying united and not allowing minor disagreements to distract us from the bigger picture.
Anti-inflammatory drugs abolish the hyperfiltration and protein leakage response to meat ingestion, suggesting that animal protein causes kidney stress through an inflammatory mechanism.
Based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which foods best supply shortfall nutrients while avoiding disease-promoting components?
Potential culprits include the trans fat in meat, the saturated fat, cholesterol, heme iron, advanced glycation end products (glycotoxins), animal protein (especially leucine), zoonotic viruses, and industrial pollutants that accumulate up the food chain.
What happened when the World Health Organization had the gall to recommend a diet low in saturated fat, sugar, and salt and high in fruit and vegetables?
Crystallization of cholesterol may be what causes atherosclerotic plaque rupture, the trigger for heart attacks
The reason those eating plant-based diets have less fat buildup in their muscle cells and less insulin resistance may be because saturated fats appear to impair blood sugar control the most.
The Paleolithic period represents just the last two million years of human evolution. What did our bodies evolve to eat during the first 90% of our time on Earth?
Dairy industry campaign to “neutralize the negative image of milkfat among regulators and health professionals as related to heart disease” seeks to undermine latest guidelines from the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology.
Lifestyle modification is considered the foundation of diabetes prevention. What dietary strategies should be employed, and why don’t more doctors use them?
The number one killer of Americans may be not eating enough fruit. Even if we just met the recommendations for fruit and vegetable intake we could save more than 100,000 people a year. One of the mechanisms by which plant foods protect us is by keeping our platelets from becoming activated.
Dr. Greger has scoured the world’s scholarly literature on clinical nutrition and developed this new presentation based on the latest in cutting-edge research exploring the role diet may play in preventing, arresting, and even reversing some of our leading causes of death and disability.
The safety of food additives is determined not by the FDA, but by the manufacturers of the chemicals themselves.
Coronary heart disease, our #1 cause of death, was found to be almost non-existent in a population eating a diet centered around whole plant foods.
Interventions to improve child nutrition at school have included everything from reducing cookie size, adding fruit to classroom cupcake celebrations, and giving vegetables attractive names, to more comprehensive strategies such as “veggiecation” curricula, and transforming school cafeterias.