Heart diseases not caused by fried food, but cooking oil

[mevotex]

A new study has found that there is no direct correlation between the amount of fried food people eat and their risk of heart disease. Instead, the research found that long-term heart risk depended more on what kind of oil was used in the cooking process — olive oil and sunflower oil are considered the healthiest.



The study, published by the British Medical Journal, studied the eating and cooking habits of 40,000 people in Spain for nearly 15 years. The Spanish Mediterranean diet favored by most individuals in the study leans heavily on fried foods, particularly fried fish, but they also use the healthier olive and sunflower oils for the frying.

"In the Mediterranean country where olive and sunflower oils are the most commonly used fats for frying, and where large amounts of fried foods are consumed, no association was observed between fried food consumption and the risk of coronary heart disease or death."

Professor Michael Leitzmann from Germany's University of Regensburg said two other similar research projects shown comparable results that there is no direct correlation between fried foods and heart disease.



"Taken together, the myth that frying food is generally bad for the heart is not supported by available evidence," Leitzmann wrote. "However, this does not mean that frequent meals of fried food will have no health consequences," noting that the fried foods have higher calorie counts and are linked to obesity and high blood pressure.

Fried foods from US-style takeaways were different, as most Americans use less healthy oils to fry their foods. And even more damaging, re-used cooking oils reportedly contain higher levels of saturated fats, which are linked to poor heart health.


The type of cooking oil plays a big role in your health

Victoria Taylor, senior heart health dietitian at the British Heart Foundation, told the Telegraph, "We currently recommend swapping saturated fats like butter, lard or palm oil for unsaturated fats as a way of keeping your cholesterol down and this study gives further cause to make that switch. Regardless of the cooking methods used, consuming foods with high fat content means a high calorie intake. This can lead to weight gain and obesity, which is a risk factor for heart disease.

Fried food commonly gets the brunt of the blame for the much-publicized rise in obesity that many nations are facing. Since obese people are at higher risk for heart attack, diabetes, and other life-threatening diseases, quick-fix solutions to the problem are common. However, as this study points out, one type of food isn't the culprit; the whole diet is.


Contrary to what some may think, not all cholesterol are bad

[panzai]

got this from a forwarded ebook - heart disease, cholesterol

Most people react to being told they have high cholesterol in the same way they wouldif they were told that they had terminal cancer. These two words, “high cholesterol,” strike immediate fear when spoken by a doctor!From the cradle, we have been taught that eating fatty foods like butter and cheese will clog our arteries (atherosclerosis) and
eventually result in a heart attack. But what if this isn’t true? Despite the fact that we’ve been told this for decades (by the media andthe medical establishment), the fact of thematter is that high cholesterol is merely a symptom of heart disease and not the cause.

What is Cholesterol?
Cholesterol is small molecule and is often referred to as a “lipid” or a “fat.” Most of us know that cholesterol exists in high concentrations in egg yolks, in fatty meats
(beef, pork, and poultry) and in shellfish. However, most of the cholesterol in the
bloodstream is incorporated into compounds that are manufactured by the body for a wide variety of vital purposes.

Cholesterol is so important that every cell in the human body can manufacture it. The membranes of cells are constructed primarily of lipids, which play a vital role in regulating what may enter and exit the cell. The body actually uses cholesterol as a kind of band‐aid to cover abrasions and tears in damaged arterial walls just as it does it for any other wound. Cholesterol is nothing less than a “life‐saver.”

Cholesterol is found in large quantities in every one of the trillions of cells in the human body. It is used to synthesize several steroid hormones, including estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, as well as corticosteroids. Cholesterol is also the precursor from which the body synthesizes vitamin D.

It is also a key building block for the proper functioning of nerve tissue and brain cells. In fact, cholesterol is one of the primary organic molecules in the human brain and makes up nearly 8% of the dry weight of the brain. In other words, it’s essential to your ability to think, remember, and to act.

The liver, which is our God‐given “chemical factory,” is the largest producer and consumer of cholesterol. Each day, our liver produces approximately ½ teaspoon of
cholesterol. Because cholesterol is insoluble in water and thus also in blood, it is
transported in our blood inside spheric particles composed of fats (lipids) and
proteins, called “lipoproteins."

LDL and HDL
Lipoproteins come in different sizes, and you may have heard of the Low Density
Lipoproteins (LDL) and the High Density Lipoproteins (HDL). We have been taught
that there is “good” cholesterol (HDL) and “bad” cholesterol (LDL).
However, this is just a myth. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS “GOOD” AND “BAD”
CHOLESTEROL! Cholesterol is just one chemical compound and all cholesterol is
exactly the same. Talking of LDL cholesterol and HDL cholesterol as if they were two
different types of cholesterol is deceptive. The LDL and the HDL are merely the
“carriers” of the cholesterol since cholesterol is not water soluble. LDL carries cholesterol from the liver to where it is needed for cell repair and all the other jobs that cholesterol does. HDL carries “second‐hand” cholesterol
from cells being replaced back to the liver for re‐use. Neither are “good” or “bad” – they are both essential.

Two recent studies (both in 2006) dispelled the myths about LDL and HDL. The first,
published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, found that LDL was
NOT a predictor of greater disease. This was confirmed by a joint Canadian and
American group who also found that levels of LDL did not predict heart disease. This, of course, is exactly the opposite of what we have been told for almost 50 years!

Is there a link?
Cholesterol and heart disease have been almost synonymous for the last half‐century.
In the media and by our doctors, cholesterol has been portrayed as the “Darth Vader” to our arteries and our heart. However, looking Cholesterol and heart disease have been almost synonymous for the last half‐century. In the media and by our doctors, cholesterol has been portrayed as the “Darth Vader” to our arteries and our heart. However, looking at the combined results of more than 40 different trials which looked at whether lowering cholesterol levels reduced the occurrence of heart disease, analysis shows there were similar rates of heart attack and overall mortality both in the groups who lowered their cholesterol and in those who did not.
One of the most significant cholesterol research contributions comes from Dr. Uffe
Ravnskov from Sweden, a medical doctor and researcher who is a world‐renowned
expert on cholesterol. From all the analysis that Ravnskov did, he could not see any
association between cholesterol and heart disease.

$tatin Drug$
Not surprisingly, most of the momentum for the anti‐cholesterol campaign has come from major pharmaceutical companies with huge marketing budgets.

During the last quarter century, Big Pharma has mounted an incredible promotional
campaign (enlisting scientists, advertising agencies, the media, and the medical
establishment) in a blitz that turned cholesterol‐lowering (statin) drugs into one
of the best‐selling pharmaceuticals of all time. Big Pharma has generated hundreds of
billions of dollars in sales of statin drugs, which are now a market worth around $30
billion per year in the US alone, and climbing annually.

But before we proceed, let’s get this straight. It is a LIE that cholesterol in your food causes cholesterol in your blood and that high cholesterol in your blood causes death from heart disease. That is false data.

In 1987, Merck made headlines when it came out with Mevacor (Lovastatin), the first
cholesterol‐lowering statin drug. Lovastatin became the most rapidly approved drug in
the FDA’s history.

Statin drugs block enzyme pathways involved in the production of cholesterol,
thereby lowering cholesterol levels. But that’s not all these drugs do. The same
enzymes that are involved in the production of cholesterol are also required for the
production of an essential compound called coenzyme Q10. Not surprisingly, lower
cholesterol levels in statin users are accompanied by reduced levels of CoQ10.
Coenzyme Q10 plays an important role in the manufacture of ATP, the fuel that runs
cellular processes. Though it is present in every cell in your body, it is especially
concentrated in the very active cells of your heart. Depriving the heart of CoQ10 is like removing a spark plug from your engine ‐‐ it just won’t work properly. Low levels of CoQ10 are implicated in virtually all cardiovascular diseases.

In an 8‐year long heart study, researchers observed 10,000 people with high cholesterol levels. Half of them received a best‐selling statin drug. The other half were
simply told to eat a normal diet and get enough exercise. The results stunned the
researchers. Although the statin drug did indeed lower serum cholesterol, this had no
impact whatsoever on death rate, non‐fatal heart attacks, and fatal arterial disease. In
other words, the statin‐users had zero advantage over those who received no
treatment at all. However, they had just spent eight years taking a costly drug with
hideous side effects including liver failure, muscle wasting, and even sudden death.

The fact is that lowering cholesterol does not lower the risk of developing heart disease. However, Big Pharma doesn’t let the facts get in the way of their marketing efforts! In 2009, the top selling prescription drugs in the USA were Lipitor and Zocor, with combined sales of over $13 BILLION, both of which treat high cholesterol.

This raises an interesting point. Most people would have thought that the #1 and #2 top selling pharmaceutical drugs would have been for real diseases like cancer or diabetes. But that is not the case. As strange as it may seem, the top selling prescription drugs are sold to people who don’t really have a disease at all, but only elevated cholesterol, which has been shown to have NO EFFECT on heart disease.

[gorshan]

ever since i almost kicked the bucket few years back i have been on sunflower oil ever since. cannot afford olive oil as it is sold at a luxurious price here. but it is difficult in Malaysia to avoid palm oil and vegetable oil as it is used by fast food restaurants and found in almost all dry and wet food manufactured here in Malaysia.

[lasting99]

OK... thank for the info. Me and my boys are going out tonight and have a bucket full of KFC each!

Cheers!