Chapter 2 - Cholesterol, Facts and Fiction

low carbohydrate foods, even if the focus is not on carbohydrate restriction, specifically.

There’s a lot more to cholesterol than just what we eat too. Case in point: when I was in school, an instructor told us about a study published several years earlier, but I don’t recall the source. According to her report, a drug manufacturer was preparing a group of laboratory rabbits for testing a new anti-cholesterol drug. There were actually three groups of these rabbits. All of them were fed diets that normally create high cholesterol levels in that particular breed of rabbit. Just prior to the time scheduled to begin the drug testing, all the rabbits’ blood was tested to make sure their cholesterol levels were actually high enough to run the tests. But one group out of the three consistently did not have high cholesterol levels. This baffled the researchers. All the rabbits were fed identical diets and had identical living conditions. So how could this be? They were at a complete loss for an explanation.

However, further investigation revealed that the group that had the lower cholesterol levels were housed in cages that were at eye level to the caretakers. When the rabbit feeders came around to feed them, they would take these rabbits out, love them and pet them. This was the only difference.

Researchers then tried doing the same thing with test rabbits at some other universities (taking one group out, loving and petting them) and they found similar, low-cholesterol results. So another way to keep your cholesterol levels down to a healthy level in a fun and exciting way is to have somebody you love “take you out of your cage” to love and be kind to you every day! (Reduce your stress!)

The most threatening cholesterol monsters we face in America today are stress and the combination of fats with carbohydrates – combinations such as the Great American staples: French fries, doughnuts, pasta and meatballs, steak and potatoes, bread and butter, ice cream, cookies, cakes, potato chips, and all manner of snacks. Eating fats without simultaneously consuming carbs is nowhere nearly as dangerous. But this ill-fated combination is a major harbinger of

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