Chapter 2 - Cholesterol, Facts and FictionWant More Diabetes Info? Search HERE
cholesterol drug and recommended that he discontinue its use. Once he did, the symptoms began to clear up immediately. We must logically assume, therefore, that a nutritional approach to normalizing cholesterol levels and cholesterol ratios certainly must be a more reasonable and safe approach than using dangerous, cholesterol lowering, prescription drugs and in at least some cases it’s possibly even more effective. How does a low-carbohydrate dietary approach accomplish these very desirable results? Let me explain. When we eat carbohydrates, because they’re such simple, easy-to-break-down molecules, they’re rapidly converted into their simplest form – glucose – blood sugar – when digested. The presence of blood sugar triggers the release of insulin from the pancreas into the blood stream. The purpose of this insulin is to carry the blood sugar out of the blood stream and into the cells where it’s then converted to energy. Carrying the blood sugar out of the blood stream and into the cells, therefore, lowers the blood sugar to achieve normal levels and feeds the cells themselves. In the United States especially, because our bodies are so adept at dealing with very high amounts and concentrations of carbohydrates in the average diet that many people, especially those who carry extra weight, not only release insulin, they release abnormally high amounts – in fact, massive amounts! This causes some of the most challenging problems in America today including run-away obesity in the public, constant, insatiable hunger and eventual type II diabetes, a major epidemic in this country. Childhood obesity in our society is in epidemic proportions now and I absolutely believe that this is the primary cause. The presence of insulin in our blood stream also causes the cells in our bodies to produce their own cholesterol inside of themselves, a process described in physiology books as the “cholesterol synthesis pathway.” When this happens, the cells ignore any cholesterol that may be present in the blood because they already have enough to perform all their functions. Consequently, the cholesterol remains in the blood (“high serum cholesterol”). This serum cholesterol
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