I believe there was a study from a few years ago from Cambridge university where people with a high HDL actually had an INCREASED risk of heart disease, not lower!
People with seemingly “perfect cholesterol” numbers still get heart disease! (As has been shown several times in large population studies).
What you said makes perfect sense.
Looking at HDL number in isolation doesn’t really tell us much.
Anything that increases your HDL will tend to decrease LDL….and it’s theorised that low LDL may actually be one of the most powerful predictors of cancer incidence even decades before it happens and a whole host of other potential negative health outcomes.
So this idea that having a high HDL with a low LDL is desirable or “healthy” may not actually be the case at all!
To quote Prof Adam Butterworth, A researcher from the University of Cambridge:
“We had always believed that good cholesterol (HDL) is associated with a lower risk of heart disease.
Studies show that some people that have high levels of ‘good’ cholesterol actually have a higher risk of heart disease so it challenges our conventional wisdom about whether ‘good’ cholesterol is protecting people from heart disease or not.”
There have been huge efforts and money pumped into the development of drugs that raise HDL but it appears that trying to raise HDL may not actually be that useful in preventing heart disease.
Infact, one trial with a time-released niacin formulation called ‘Niaspan’ actually showed much higher risk of stroke. (‘Niaspan’ raised HDL considerably, to almost double the initial patients levels.)
Overall, having high HDL is usually a surrogate sign for having low LDL and it is LDL that is protective and serves as the raw material for steroid hormone synthesis”
Apparently alcohol (through endotoxin) is one of the most potent inducers of HDL as well as many other toxins!
Fantastic video Matt.
I believe there was a study from a few years ago from Cambridge university where people with a high HDL actually had an INCREASED risk of heart disease, not lower!
People with seemingly “perfect cholesterol” numbers still get heart disease! (As has been shown several times in large population studies).
What you said makes perfect sense.
Looking at HDL number in isolation doesn’t really tell us much.
Anything that increases your HDL will tend to decrease LDL….and it’s theorised that low LDL may actually be one of the most powerful predictors of cancer incidence even decades before it happens and a whole host of other potential negative health outcomes.
So this idea that having a high HDL with a low LDL is desirable or “healthy” may not actually be the case at all!
To quote Prof Adam Butterworth, A researcher from the University of Cambridge:
“We had always believed that good cholesterol (HDL) is associated with a lower risk of heart disease.
Studies show that some people that have high levels of ‘good’ cholesterol actually have a higher risk of heart disease so it challenges our conventional wisdom about whether ‘good’ cholesterol is protecting people from heart disease or not.”
There have been huge efforts and money pumped into the development of drugs that raise HDL but it appears that trying to raise HDL may not actually be that useful in preventing heart disease.
Infact, one trial with a time-released niacin formulation called ‘Niaspan’ actually showed much higher risk of stroke. (‘Niaspan’ raised HDL considerably, to almost double the initial patients levels.)
Overall, having high HDL is usually a surrogate sign for having low LDL and it is LDL that is protective and serves as the raw material for steroid hormone synthesis”
Apparently alcohol (through endotoxin) is one of the most potent inducers of HDL as well as many other toxins!
Thanks for this Matt! I joined the community yesterday and I’ve been absorbing a ton of great knowledge.