5 exotic low fat meats higher in protein than beef

By Melissa Valliant

Beef might be king of the red meat industry now, but leaner specialty meats have been finding their way onto menus all around the United States. In fact, Bareburger — a New York City restaurant chain serving organic, all-natural, free-range burgers — inspired this story.

The increasingly popular chain offers not only beef, turkey and veggie burgers but also wild boar, elk, bison and ostrich — all of which have less fat and more protein than beef. This list examines the nutritional profiles and tastes of each of these four specialty meats, in addition to emu, which we felt deserved equal recognition.

To keep things in perspective, you should know that the U.S. Department of Agriculture defines a lean cut of beef as a 3.5-oz. serving, or about 100 grams, that contains less than:

• 10 g total fat;
• 4.5 g saturated fat; and
• 95 mg cholesterol.

One of our favorite lean cuts of beef is the delicious — and more importantly, inexpensive! — skirt steak. According to the USDA Nutrient Database, a 100-g serving of raw skirt steak contains:

• 165 calories;
• 8.95 g fat;
• 3.47 g saturated fat;
• 69 mg cholesterol; and
• 19.62 g protein.

Bison
This burly bovine has come a long way from near extinction in the late 19th century. In 1893, there were only about 300 left; fast-forward to 2007, and there were approximately 200,000 in the United States being raised for meat.

Bison meat is a deeper red color due to the lack of fat marbling, and the taste — though comparable to beef — is slightly sweeter and richer. The cuts of meat are similar to beef as well but should be cooked at a lower heat since there’s less fat.

And in case you didn’t feel proud enough of yourself for eating less fat, here’s more good news: According to the USDA, bison are allowed to roam free most of their lives without being given hormones and antibiotics.

According to the USDA Nutrient Database, a 100-g serving of raw bison contains:

• 109 calories;
• 1.84 g fat;
• 0.69 g saturated fat;
• 62 mg cholesterol; and
• 21.62 g protein.

Ostrich
About 1,000 U.S. growers are now raising the ostrich, the largest bird in the world, for meat, according to USDA statistics. The red color of ostrich meat appears a bit darker than that of beef and is very similar in taste and texture.

Because it’s leaner, it cooks faster, and is usually grilled, broiled, pan-fried, roasted or braised. Ostrich is sold in the form of steaks, fillets, medallions, roasts and ground meat, and contains more B vitamins than beef or chicken, according to a 2011 study published in Animal Science Papers and Reports.

According to the USDA Nutrient Database, a 100-g serving of a raw round cut of ostrich contains:

• 116 calories;
• 2.4 g fat;
• 0.81 g saturated fat;
• 71 mg cholesterol; and
• 21.99 g protein.

Elk
Elk, a member of the deer family, are bigger than deer but smaller than moose and reside in North America, Europe and Asia. Elk meat is described as having a mild, sometimes sweet beef flavor, and is a good sourceof iron, phosphorus and zinc, in addition to protein.

According to the USDA Nutrient Database, a 100-g serving of raw elk contains:

• 111 calories;
• 1.45 g fat;
• 0.53 g saturated fat;
• 55 mg cholesterol; and
• 22.95 g protein.

Emu
Emu — not to be confused with the unfortunate genre of music known as emo — ranks second to the ostrich in world’s largest birds. Though it is native to Australia, it’s now raised in at least 43 states.

Both ostrich and emu are technically poultry, but their meat is considered “red meat” because the pH of their flesh is similar to beef, according to the USDA. Like ostrich, emu is sold in the form of steaks, fillets, medallions, roasts and ground meat, and it appears dark, cherry red. It’s usually either lightly grilled, pan-fried or roasted, and is a very good source of riboflavin, niacin, vitamins B6 and B12, and iron.

According to the USDA Nutrient Database, a 100-g serving of raw, “full rump” emu contains:

• 112 calories;
• 1.64 g fat;
• 0.448 g saturated fat;
• 85 mg cholesterol; and
• 22.83 g protein.

Wild boar
Wild boars are the massive, hairy pigs that are so aggressive that they’ve been known to kill tigers in self-defense. While you may imagine them terrorizing some faraway continent, wild boars actually reside in 23 states in the United States with an estimated population of more than 2 million.

Wild boar meat is prepared like pork but tastes very different. Some describe it as “sweet,” “nutty” and “strong.” St. Paul, Minn., restaurant owner and chef Lenny Russo was quoted in the Star Tribune describing the flavor like this: “I don’t want to use the word ‘gamey.’ It has a feral quality that other pigs just don’t have. Let me put it this way: When you taste it, you can tell exactly what it is.”

According to the USDA Nutrient Database, a 100-g serving of raw wild boar contains:

• 122 calories;
• 3.33 g fat;
• 0.99 g saturated fat; and
• 21.51 g protein.
• (Cholesterol information was not available.)

Why some people don't get fat

LAURA HAMBLETON

Maureen Michael likes food. Most days, she has three or four meals, and on occasion she eats yet another in the middle of the night. But she rarely worries about her weight, and at 172cm and 70kg, she looks quite trim.

"I eat anything, and I eat a lot," the 51-year-old said. "I like large portions. I have one of those metabolisms, I guess."

Just the other day, Michael ate a salad and two large helpings of spaghetti and meatballs for dinner - after having a hearty bowl of ice cream. For breakfast the next morning, she ate two scrambled eggs, half a package of Polish sausage, English muffins and orange juice. For lunch, she consumed a 12-inch seafood sub and some Doritos, and that night's dinner featured two pork chops, potatoes and broccoli.

That Michael's weight remains steady even though she eats whatever she wants and does not exercise interests scientists studying the United States' obesity epidemic. By looking at people who are near their ideal body weight, these reseachers at the National Institutes of Health's Metabolic Clinical Research Unit in Bethesda, Md., hope to figure out what causes so many others to be overweight or uncontrollably fat.

Michael is among the one-third of American adults who are at a good weight relative to their height and build. Another third are overweight, and the rest are obese. Unlike Michael, very few people keep their weight in check without paying attention to what they eat and being conscientious about physical activity.

For years, people have been told to diet, control their appetites, use a little willpower. But more and more scientists believe the obesity epidemic has been triggered by a combination beyond an individual's control: genes, and how they interact with an environment of abundant, tasty, inexpensive and hard-to-resist food.

Each person's unique genetic makeup, these experts think, may affect what he craves, how much he craves and how his body uses fat and burns calories.

"We are hard-wired to be a bit more hungry than we need to, because until very recently - in evolutionary terms - the vast majority of our fellow humans had no idea whether the next meal would be available or not," said Francesco S. Celi, a clinical investigator at the NIH research unit.

Yet for some people, there is a profound imbalance between what they eat and the amount of energy they expend. Most of these people become obese as a result, but some, like Michael, don't.

"Some are more sensitive" to that imbalance, said Rudolph Leibel, a diabetes researcher at New York's Columbia University who has been studying the biochemistry and genetics of obesity for 25 years. "That's the genetics."

"There are people in the population who are skinnier or more slender with a different genetic response to the environment," he said. That is why "just yelling at people and telling them it is sinful or gluttony is not a particular fruitful way to deal with the problem. It's not very effective to insinuate that someone has moral failings when a behavior is involved."

To try to unravel the complexity of all this, researchers at an NIH diabetes and obesity lab in Phoenix have begun to incorporate thin people into their studies. Why "some [people] tend to overeat more than they need more consistently and why this occurs is clearly complex and involves levels of behavior that we are just beginning to understand," said Jonathan Krakoff, an endocrinologist at the lab.

Krakoff and his colleagues are recruiting for a study in which thin people will consume about 4,000 calories in a 24-hour period, about twice the amount an average healthy person needs in a day.

Before participants engage in the overeating part of the study, researchers will measure their body fat and will conduct a test to make sure they don't have diabetes or impaired glucose tolerance. Then, scientists will count how many calories the participants burn in a day while they're studied. This measurement is done in a respiratory chamber where the amount of oxygen taken in and carbon dioxide expelled is monitored, revealing the number of calories burned.

"Some people might be able to burn off more excess calories as heat when they overeat, so they are the people more likely to be thin," said Marie Thearle, a staff clinician involved in the study. "We are also asking our volunteers to come back for follow-up visits once a year for up to seven years to see if any of the energy expenditure measurements with overeating during the baseline study visit predict who gains weight over time and who does not."

Thearle hopes to look deeper still into how different bodies use different nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fat and protein, and if food choices matter. "We measure whether the participant's body prefers to use carbohydrates or fat for fuel, and then we further break this down to see how many calories are being used from carbohydrates, fat and protein, respectively."

Thearle says the researchers hope to find out whether food choices matter. "Once you have met the needs of your body, does it matter what else you consume?" she said. "There's the popular myth that people don't gain weight because they have a high metabolism; we want to see if that is true. We will be looking at hormones and brown fat. We don't think the answer is differences in metabolism." Brown fat is the "good" fat that scientists say helps burn calories - and white fat, or what we think of as regular fat.

A second study at the Phoenix lab, which will involve both slim and obese participants, is more long-range. During a six-week period, the thin people will be fed meals containing 150 percent of their weight-maintaining needs. Some will get a normal amount of protein; for others, the diet will be very low in protein. Obese people will be underfed by "50 percent of their weight-maintaining needs," said Susanne Votruba, a research nutritionist at the lab.

Researchers will analyse every bit of what comes in and out of these participants. "For the long-term study, we measure output (urine and stool) and input (food) . . . to determine the exact calories that are going in and out," Vortuba wrote in an e-mail.

Vortuba hopes to figure out who among the thin volunteers gains more weight over time, and why, and who among the fatter volunteers loses more weight, and why.

In Bethesda, Celi and another investigator, Kong Chen, are taking a slightly different approach. Since humans spend so much time at rest and since "obesity is an imbalance between energy intake and energy expenditure," Celi said, he and Chen are testing what happens to a person's output of energy, stress hormones and thyroid hormone levels when his or her body gets cold.

Some studies suggest that colder temperatures help stimulate brown fat to burn more calories. Brown fat, which runs along our neck, shoulders and spine in small amounts, is like muscle tissue in that it burns calories and helps keep the body's internal temperature stable. Only recently have scientists discovered that brown fat persists in humans beyond infancy.

They have also found that lean people tend to have more brown fat than obese people.

If temperatures can influence brown fat so that the body expends more energy, people with a lot of brown fat may find it easier to lose or maintain their weight, Celi and Chen believe. If that is the case, then "instead of working on hunger, which is deep-seated in the brain," Celi said, "we are working on one tissue [brown fat] that has been proposed as the holy grail of the [human metabolic] system. We bypass the brain."

Michael is one of 24 lean recruits in a preliminary experiment run by Celi and Chen. She spent two 12-hour overnights in a specialized room with precise temperature and airflow controls. During each session inside the chamber, she ate a diet of 50 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent fat and 20 percent protein - just enough, the scientists calculated, for her to maintain her weight - while they held the room temperature at 75 degrees for one session and 68 degrees for the other.

All the while, they measured her oxygen and carbon dioxide output. They calculated her body mass. She spent 10 minutes in an oval-shape, space-age-looking machine called a Bod-Pod, which computed the weight and volume of her fat composition. She swallowed a pill containing a sensor that traced her internal temperature, while patches placed on her skin gauged her external temperature. Her heart was constantly assessed, and every 30 minutes small amounts of fluids were collected from fat tissue around her belly to evaluate her metabolism. Blood and urine samples were also taken.

Another participant, Chris Nathasingh - 31 years old, 5-11 and 170 pounds - spent his 68-degree night with only a thin blanket to supplement his pajamas. He shivered and jumped in and out of bed to keep warm.

The next morning, he was exhausted but not very hungry. The second night, the temperature was adjusted to 75 degrees, and Nathasingh slept well. "I would not say that I was hungry or hungrier [after the second night], but I definitely could not wait to eat," he said. "Where sleep deprivation after the cold night made me only focus on sleep, the absence of such deprivation after the warm night made me focus on the next best thing: food."

Celi and Chen are optimistic about some early findings in the trial. The participants' energy expenditures went up when the room temperature was lowered. They plan to conduct a larger study, involving 180 volunteers, both lean and overweight.

Michael, who was a swimmer, dancer and gymnast as a girl, and who was skinnier than her girlhood friends, keeps her home at about 22C in the winter (a bit warmer than she likes, but her elderly mother likes it warm) and about 21C in the summer. Her weight is a little higher than she wants, but she doesn't think about dieting. Instead, she might try some exercise.

"I need to," she said. "I am getting older. I have slacked off as an adult. I can tell the difference."

How to walk off the belly fat

By Tracy Teare

Sure, you know walking is good exercise. But here's some­thing you might not realize: You can give your waistline (and other body parts) a serious trimming by tweaking that walk around the block.

The three women below each walked off at least 35 pounds, much of it around the middle, using one of these secret weapons: plyometrics, hills, or intervals. The strategies also strengthened their legs more quickly than plain old walking sessions, so they could walk longer and faster to burn more calories.

After six weeks of walking four to six times a week, you will feel stronger and look slimmer where it counts.Health.com: Walk a little, live a lot (longer)

Secret weapon: Plyometrics

Adding bounding, jumping, and skipping moves (called plyometrics) to your walk is a fun way to spike the intensity. You'll burn up to twice as many calories --and significantly more belly fat -- per minute than you would just walking at a moderate pace.

"These moves vary the walking pattern your body has grown accustomed to, so you engage different muscle fibers," says Joy Prouty, veteran Florida-based trainer and American College of Sports Medicine-certified health-fitness director. "And that helps shape and define your body." 

It worked for Claire Jefferson-Glipa, 31, of Riverside, California.

Adding one-minute bursts of plyo­metrics to the Stroller Strides classes she leads each week -- along with making healthy changes in her eating habits --helped Jefferson-Glipa drop 36 pounds in just nine months. "It's so exciting that my clothes are looser," she says.

Make it work for you

Try this workout from Prouty, gradually adding more plyo­metrics as your fitness level improves. It can be done either outside or on the treadmill (just be sure to step off the machine to do the plyometrics moves).

• 1. Walk 15 minutes, building to a moderate pace.

• 2. Do 30 High-Knee Steps forward (alternating legs); skip for 30 seconds, then walk at a moderate pace for one minute.

• 3. Do 15 Traveling Lateral Squats (turn and move sideways as you squat) in slow motion, followed by five Squat Jumps (squat slightly, then swing arms up as you jump). Knee problems? Rise up on your toes instead of jumping.

• 4. Walk at a moderate pace for 10 minutes.

• 5. Repeat step 2.

• 6. Walk for five minutes at a moderate pace, then five minutes at a slow pace to cool down.

Secret weapon: Hills

To triple the number of calories you burn, go to where it's hilly, Prouty says. Walking on hills can burn tons of calories and fat, so you'll work that stomach pooch off faster than you would on flat terrain. Uphill walks are great for strengthening and shaping your lower half -- plus, you'll feel stronger and go faster on level ground. 

It worked for Robyn Kammerer, 33, of Rowayton, Connecticut.

Kammerer dropped 50 postpregnancy pounds in four months by eating healthier and walking every day on the hills near her home. "If I'm out of breath at the top of one of these killer hills," she says, "I remind myself that I can now wear skirts that haven't fit in years."

Make it work for you

Start by changing your walking routine: Twice a week, replace 25 percent of your flat route with short or gradual hills. (New to walking? Start with 20-minute walks that include five minutes of hills.) After two weeks, seek out longer or steeper hills, and add 10 percent more climbing each week. Your goal is to do between one-half and two-thirds of your workout on hills.

Live in a flat area? Substitute this treadmill climb: After a 10-minute warm-up, gradually increase the incline from 0 to 2 percent for 5 to 10 minutes. Then, gradually decrease the incline in the same amount of time, finishing with 5 to 10 minutes of flat walking. Each week or two, increase the incline by 1 percent.

Secret weapon: Intervals

Alternating moderately paced walking with short, faster-paced intervals lets you amp up your walk without tiring yourself out. You'll also dump stomach weight more quickly and torch more calories than you would on a steady-paced walk. By peppering in a 30-minute walk with 10 one-minute speed bursts, for example, you can nearly double your calorie burn. 

It worked for Virginia Cox, 42, of Belmont, Massachusetts.

Doing 15 miles' worth of interval walking a week (plus cutting down on starchy foods and sweet treats) helped Cox shed 45 pounds of baby weight in just six months. "I look and feel great because of walking," Cox says. "Plus, I now fit into the jeans that I wore when I was in my 20s." An unexpected bonus: She's sleeping much better, too.

Make it work for you

Warm up at an easy pace, then walk at a moderate pace for 10 minutes; increase speed for one minute, Prouty says. Do another 3 minutes at a moderate pace; repeat one or two times, then do 10 moderately-paced minutes.

As you get stronger, add more intervals, aiming to alternate 1-minute speed bursts with one minute of moderate walking

Put Those Shoes On: Running Won't Kill Your Knees

by PATTI NEIGHMOND

Yes, it's true: Jogging, long thought to hurt knees with all that pounding and rattling around, may actually be beneficial for the complex and critical joint. There are caveats, though, especially for people who have suffered significant knee injury or are overweight. But for the most part, researchers say, jogging for your health seems like a good idea.

David Felson, a researcher and epidemiologist at Boston University School of Medicine, says past concern about jogging and knees centered on the continuous impact of the foot to the ground and suggestion that it caused degeneration of the knee and the onset of osteoarthritis. But when researchers actually studied the impact of running on knees, he says, that's not what they found.

"We know from many long-term studies that running doesn't appear to cause much damage to the knees," he says. "When we look at people with knee arthritis, we don't find much of a previous history of running, and when we look at runners and follow them over time, we don't find that their risk of developing osteoarthritis is any more than expected." Both types of studies agree, says Felson, that recreational running doesn't increase the risk of arthritis.

'Running Is Healthy For The Joint'

In one study, Swedish researchers found that exercise, including jogging, may even be beneficial. Felson describes how researchers took one group of people at risk of osteoarthritis and had them engage in exercise, including jogging. The other group didn't exercise. After imaging the joints of the participants in both study groups, they found that the biochemistry of cartilage actually appeared to improve in those participants who were running. Felson says that suggests that "running is actually healthy for the joint."

Jonathan Chang, an orthopedic surgeon in Alhambra, Calif., says that exercise appears to stimulate cartilage to repair to minor damage. It could be that the impact of body weight when the foot hits the ground increases production of certain proteins in the cartilage that make it stronger, he says. This is similar to the way exercise, in particular weight-bearing exercise like jogging, increases bone and muscle mass.

According to Nancy Lane, director of the UC Davis Center for Healthy Aging who specializes in rheumatology and diseases related to aging, scientists are now starting to understand that there is some loss of cartilage annually after a certain age. Some doctors think cartilage loss begins after age 40.

But, according to Lane, "if you have a relatively normal knee and you're jogging five to six times a week at a moderate pace, then there's every reason to believe that your joints will remain healthy."

An Indicator Of Activity

That's great news for Paul and Lyra Rider, avid joggers who live in the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles. Jogging on Mulholland Drive, they say, offers fantastic views — along with a relatively flat route. Paul, 46, jogs a seven- to eight-minute mile — not as fast as his younger days. Lyra jogs a bit slower. She enjoys the exercise, health benefits and simplicity of jogging. "You don't need lots of fancy equipment, and you just feel great when you're done," she says.

Lane did some of the very first studies of runners and knees while she was a resident at Stanford University.

"We wanted to answer the important question of whether, if you continued to run into your 50s and 60s and even 70s, you also ran the risk of damaging the knees," she says. The answer, she says: absolutely not. And there was an extra bonus: While enthusiasm for jogging seemed to diminish as people hit their mid-60s, Lane says they were still more inclined than the non-joggers to get out and exercise.

"They were active doing other activities, like walking, yoga, water aerobics," she says. "We found that as these people aged, not only did they feel better about themselves, but their quality of life was better and they tended to actually live longer" than the non-joggers.

So, the message for joggers like the Riders, who hope to be jogging all their lives, is a hearty two thumbs up.

A Few Caveats

Lane cautions that if you have suffered a knee injury, especially one that required surgery, running can actually increase your risk of knee arthritis. So can routinely running really fast — at a five- or six-minute-mile pace — or running in a marathon. Lane's best advice? Running in moderation, at an eight- to 10-minute mile pace, for about 40 minutes a day.

But if people are more than 20 pounds overweight, Lane says they shouldn't start off with an intense running regimen.

"I have them walk and walk until they're to a point where I think their body mass is reduced enough that it won't traumatize their joints," she says. Otherwise, significantly overweight joggers run the risk of that extra weight stressing the knee to the point of inflammation, the formation of bony spurs and accelerated cartilage loss.

There Is Only One Type of Cholesterol: Here's Why

By Heidi Stevenson

We keep hearing about different types of cholesterol. It's all nonsense. There's only one cholesterol molecule, so there's only one type of cholesterol. What started this nonsense of types of cholesterol?

Just how many types of cholesterol are there? The more we're indoctrinated with the cholesterol-as-poison myth, the more types they seem to find. HDL. LDL. VLDL. And those pesky triglycerides: Are they a type of cholesterol? Here's the truth:

None of them are cholesterol, and there is only one type of cholesterol! That's right. HDL, LDL, and VLDL aren't cholesterol. And cholesterol isn't a fat.

All that nonsense bandied about to make you fearful that your cholesterol levels are too high ... well, unless they're the "right type" of cholesterol ... or maybe it's making sure they're at the right balance ... or whatever the latest fad among doctors happens to be ... It's all pure and utter nonsense. It's a cooked up jamboree of confusion, designed to put not only you, but also your doctor, off balance and disoriented so you'll buy into the idea that you really must take their poisons ... uh, drugs, or you could die tomorrow.

The Only Kind of Cholesterol

Cholesterol Molecule, by Gaia Health

The elements in cholesterol are 27 carbon atoms, 45 hydrogen atoms, and an oxygen-hydrogen pair. That's 27 carbons, 46 hydrogens, and 1 lonely oxygen.

A cholesterol molecule includes four hydrocarbon ring structures, as shown in the tinted area of the diagram to the right. These rings place cholesterol in the steroid hormone family. In fact, all other steroid hormones, including estrogen and testosterone, are made from cholesterol.

The hydroxyl group is indicated by the HO at the bottom of the diagram. Any molecule that has a hydroxyl group is defined as an alcohol. Alcohol is water soluble.

Cholesterol has a tail of carbon and hydrogen atoms that extends off the rings. Both the tail and rings are nonpolar, which means that they dissolve in oil, but cannot dissolve in water.

This is a cholesterol molecule. There is no other kind of cholesterol molecule. There is, therefore, only one kind of cholesterol. You can look and look, but you'll never find another model of a cholesterol molecule.

The Confusion

So where did the idea that there's more than one sort of cholesterol come from?

Remember that cholesterol consists of three parts. Two of the three cannot be dissolved in water. Overall, that makes cholesterol incapable of dissolving in blood. Therefore, it requires a carrier to be transported throughout the body. That carrier is a lipoprotein. And that's where the idea that there are different kinds of cholesterol come from.

There are different kinds of lipoproteins. Each carries cholesterol, but they are not part of cholesterol. So where did this idea that there are different kinds of cholesterol come from?

History of the Cholesterol Myth

A string of events and studies led to the myth that cholesterol is harmful. Back in 1889, researchers Lehzen and Knauss reported on a child who died suddenly at the age of 11¹. The child was born with a condition, called hypercholesterolemia, which causes massive overproduction of cholesterol. This seems to have been the seed that led to the concept that cholesterol is bad.

Then, a series of experiments were done on lab animals^2,3. Nikolai N. Anitschkow fed rabbits purified cholesterol, demonstrating that they developed atherosclerosis. Of course, rabbits do not naturally eat such a diet—but that little detail seems to have been ignored. So more such experiments were done on goats, hens, parrots, guinea pigs, pigeons, and rhesus monkeys. The same was attempted on dogs, but being natural meat eaters, it didn't work. Of course, this bit of information was ignored.

In 1955, Ancel Keys was already convinced that fat in the diet is key to cholesterol levels. He did an epidemiological study claiming to show that high fat intake is directly linked to heart attacks. The catch is, he cheated. He collected data from 22 countries, many of which strongly conflicted with his conclusion, which was based on the data from only 7 countries! He cherry-picked his data to produce the results he wanted. Nonetheless, his so-called research is cited to this day. For a humorous look at his work, take a look at this video.

From that point, modern medicine was hooked on the cholesterol-as-villain theory. The question is: Why? Why was it so important to accept obviously flawed junk science? Like any other industry, modern medicine wants to sell products, which means getting people to doctors' visits and pushing drugs. Treating cholesterol as a villain has led to a constant stream of people turned into patients, streaming into doctors' offices and getting drugs, primarily statins, but many others, too, as the drug-as-prevention idea has gotten rolling.

So the pseudo science mills got to work producing faux study after faux study purporting to show how cholesterol causes heart disease. In that effort, they started to discover different "types" of cholesterol. Since that's obviously absurd, what exactly are they referring to?

Lipoproteins

Remember that cholesterol isn't water soluble? As a result, they need to be carried by something else to travel in the blood. Those things are lipoproteins, so named because they're a mix of fat (lipo-) and protein. As it turns out, there are different types of lipoproteins. So, when you hear about different types of cholesterol, what they're really referring to is lipoproteins that carry both cholesterol and fat to cells. This association of lipoproteins with both fat and cholesterol has led to the idea that cholesterol is a fat, but that is also untrue.

There are several types of lipoproteins, more, in fact, than we're generally told. Ever hear of chylomicrons? Those are the biggest kind of lipoprotein—but we never hear about them because no one has figured out how to measure them in a blood test. Now that should tell you something about this whole cholesterol myth. Apparently, the only lipoproteins we're going to be informed about are those that can be measured. If they can't measure them, then there's no way to determine if you need a drug to raise or lower them.

We don't often hear about VLDL (very low density lipoprotein). That's because no one's really figured out an easy way to measure it. When we are given a measure, it's nearly always a guesstimate, based on an assumed ratio with triglycerides.

VLDLs carry fats in the form of triglycerides to cells in the body. They also carry cholesterol, but don't release it. When VLDLs have released most of the fat, they're called IDLs (intermediate density lipoproteins). IDLs release more fat to cells and become LDLs (low density lipoproteins).

LDL is what's meant by bad cholesterol. There are indications that after LDLs have distributed their cholesterol, they become small enough to burrow into the linings of arteries and oxidize, thus resulting in the inflammation that's so damaging. Whether this is true or not, it's quite clear that cholesterol is not the issue. In any case, LDLs disperse cholesterol molecules to cells where they're needed.

HDLs (high density lipoproteins) are often called "good" cholesterol. They have several functions, including the transport of cholesterol. However, rather than transport it to cells, HDLs transport cholesterol from them and back to the liver, where the liver determines whether to recycle or dispose of it. The liver is in control of how much cholesterol is in your body, not lipoproteins.

Among HDL's functions is to carry anti-oxidative enzymes. This could explain why HDL is the seen as good: it may help neutralize potential harm done by depleted LDLs' oxidation.

Cholesterol, Friend Not Enemy

Cholesterol has been demonized. Yet the more it's demonized, the more heart disease we've seen. Obviously, something's wrong with the the theory. Unfortunately, entrenched interests won't let it go without a fight. There's simply too much money riding on this false hypothesis. So, more and more details are discovered, resulting in more and more distinctions in so-called types of cholesterol—in spite of how obviously absurd the concept is. There is one, and only one, type of cholesterol.

This one type of cholesterol is critically important for survival. It's required to make Vitamin D₃. which is required for brain and nerve function. Without it, you can't form memories, so it's no wonder that statins, which interfere with cholesterol formation, can harm memory. Cholesterol is required to form corticosteroid, testosterone, and estrogen. We need cholesterol, and interfering with it results in devastating health effects. It should come as no surprise that statins produce so much harm.

Truly, if you value your health, you will ignore the warnings about high cholesterol levels. Unless you suffer from hypercholesterolemia, a congenital defect, the chances of having excess cholesterol are fadingly slim. If you have a problem with lipoproteins, reducing cholesterol isn't going to help, and taking statins, which do reduce cholesterol as they claim, could do terrible things to your health.

Just remember that cholesterol isn't measured by blood tests. Lipoproteins are, and they aren't cholesterol.

You can see Dr. Kendrick lecture about the cholesterol con in this video.

Resources

1. An interpretive history of the cholesterol controversy: part II: the early evidence linking hypercholesterolemia to coronary disease in humans
2. Thematic review series: The Pathogenesis of Atherosclerosis. An interpretive history of the cholesterol controversy: part I
3. Heart Frauds: Uncovering the Biggest Health Scam in History, page 60
4. Plasma Lipoproteins – Composition, Structure and Biochemistry
5. Lipoproteins: Lipid Digestion & Transport
6. LDL Oxidation in Atherogenesis

South Asians more prone to type 2 diabetes

by Kounteya Sinha

NEW DELHI: A twitch in the genes of South Asians is making them more prone to type 2 diabetes. 

An international team of researchers, led by Imperial College, London, has identified six new genetic variants associated with type 2 diabetes among South Asians. 

The findings, published in Nature Genetics, will now give scientists new leads in the search for diagnostic markers and drug targets to prevent and treat this major disease. 

Scientists say that people of South Asian ancestry are up to four times more likely than Europeans to develop type 2 diabetes, which is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke. 

Around 55 million South Asians are affected by type 2 diabetes worldwide, and it is projected to rise to 80 million by 2030. 

This new study is the first to focus on genes underlying diabetes among South Asians (people from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh). 

The researchers from around the world examined the DNA of 18,731 people with type 2 diabetes and 39,856 healthy ones. The genomes of the participants were analyzed to look for locations where variations were more common in those with diabetes. 

The results identified six positions where differences of a single letter in the genetic code were associated with type 2 diabetes, suggesting that nearby genes have a role in the disease. 

Dr John Chambers, the senior author of the study, from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, said: "Type 2 diabetes is more common in South Asian populations than any other ethnic group, but the reason for this increased risk is unclear. Although lifestyle factors such as unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and obesity are important causes of diabetes in South Asians, these are only part of the explanation. Genetic factors have been widely considered to play a role in the increased risk of type 2 diabetes in Asians, but to date have not been systematically explored in this population." 

He added, "Our study identifies six new genetic variants linked to type 2 diabetes in South Asians. Our findings give important new insight into the genes underlying of diabetes in this population, which in the long term might lead to new treatments to prevent diabetes." 

The collaboration included leading researchers from Imperial College London, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, the University of Birmingham, and the Peninsular Medical School in the UK, as well National University of Singapore, University of Mauritius, Baker IDI (Australia), Mohan Diabetes Centre (India), University of Kelaniya (Sri Lanka), NCGM (Japan),University of Houston (USA) and Aga Khan University (Pakistan). 

Professor Jaspal S Kooner, from the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College, London, the lead author for the study said: "This is the first genome-wide association study in South Asians, who comprise one-quarter of the globe's population, and who carry a high burden of the disease and its complications, including heart attack and stroke. We have shown that the genetic variants discovered here in South Asians also exist and contribute to diabetes in Europeans. Our studies in Asians and European populations highlight the importance and gain in examining the same problem in different ethnic groups."

'Pack-a-day crisp habit' warning

Half of UK children "drink" almost five litres of cooking oil every year as a result of their pack-a-day crisp habit, experts warn. (September 2006)

Nearly a fifth of children eat two packets of crisps per day, says the British Heart Foundation.
Its Food4Thought campaign aims to expose hidden salt, fat and sugar in common foods.
Pictures of a girl drinking cooking oil with the caption "What goes into crisps goes into you" will appear nationwide.
But the campaign has been criticised as "scare tactics", by the food industry body.
And the Snacks, Nuts and Crisps Manufacturers Association claims the BHF "over-estimated" the oil content by basing its calculations on large crisp packets.
A typical 35g bag of crisps contains about two-and-a-half teaspoons of oil.

Daily unhealthy snacking is a worrying habit  Professor Peter Weissberg of the BHF Send us your comments

A larger 50g pack contains three-and-a-half.
Figures from Mintel reveal that we eat a tonne of crisps every three minutes in the UK.
This would be enough to fill a telephone box every 43 seconds and an Olympic size swimming pool every 14 hours.
Another recent survey found nearly three quarters of mothers said they fed their children ready meals or takeaways more than three times a week.
By 2020, it is thought that a quarter of UK children will be overweight.

CRISP FACTS Over 9 billion packs of crisps, snacks & nuts are eaten every year, equating to 150 bags per person per year The UK Crisps & Snacks market is worth £2 billion per year Crisps are found in 69% of the 5.5 billion lunchboxes packed for children in the UK Sources: Food Standards Agency and Information Resources Inc

BHF is calling for a ban on the marketing of junk food products to children, particularly on the TV and the internet.
It also says cooking skills should be a compulsory part of schooling.
BHF medical director Professor Peter Weissberg said: "Daily unhealthy snacking is a worrying habit.
"Rising rates of childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes paint a particularly grim picture for the future.
"The campaign is about challenging our children about what's lurking in their snacks, takeaways and ready meals."
Ambassadors
Teaching resources in the shape of over-sized burger boxes will be sent to 2,500 UK schools. Student packs will be delivered to 400,000 children later this year.
More than 200 schoolchildren have volunteered to become BHF Young Ambassadors, who will be lobbying their schools, MPs and local media.
A Department of Health spokesperson said: "Government is committed to halting the rise of childhood obesity but we cannot do it on our own.
"Ofcom recently consulted on restricting food advertising to children and we await the outcome of that consultation.
"We are working with the food manufacturers and retailers to reduce fat, salt and sugar in their foods and to provide clear labelling."
Neil Campbell, general manager for Walkers, said: "We wholeheartedly agree that people should avoid products that are high in saturated fat, which is why we invested millions of pounds in developing Sunseed oil, one of the healthiest oils there is.
"We introduced Sunseed oil in February this year, resulting in a 70% reduction in the saturated fat content of Walkers Crisps."

Julian Hunt of the Food and Drink Federation said: "One of the great things about our industry is that we strive to give consumers genuine choice, whether it is a better for you version or a completely reformulated standard product."