You lead an active lifestyle, eat clean, and prioritize your health —- but then, your blood work shocks you with a cholesterol number that is not a fair reflection of the healthy choices you made. This is a common question that baffles clients when they first come to me.
In this blog post, I will break down the misconceptions about cholesterol and share key strategies that can help you bring your cholesterol levels back to a healthy range more easily than you might think.
Cholesterol Big Misconception #1 Cholesterol = Heart Attack Culprit
Cholesterol is often viewed as the culprit for heart attack.
But not all cholesterol is bad. Only a small percentage of all cholesterol is responsible for causing damage to the arteries and leading to plaque buildup. Cholesterol plays vital roles in the body—it provides the building blocks for reproductive hormones that give you vigor and adrenal hormones that give you energy during the day and help you sleep at night. It also serves as a carrier for fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K.
Even if someone deprives themselves of butter, the liver will still produce cholesterol based on the body’s needs. In fact, 80% of cholesterol is produced internally.
Cholesterol Big Misconception #2 Cholesterol = Bad
It turns out that cholesterol is produced for your protection, not to harm your health. In times of physical or psychological stress, the body increases cholesterol production as a temporary fix, acting like a makeshift band-aid to protect arteries from micro injuries. Some types of cholesterol even carry a small amount of antioxidants while others attract immune cells to the inner lining of arteries to try to aid the healing process. However, if stressors and injuries persist beyond your innate repair mechanism, layers of this "band-aid" can accumulate in the arteries, leading to plaquing over time. Simply lowering cholesterol doesn't address the underlying chronic stressors and injuries. That’s why statin does not lower the absolute risk for heart attack (according to Dr. Peter Attia’s review find in references).
The Two Way Street of Cholesterol Balance
The body balances cholesterol through a two-way process. The liver not only produces cholesterol for vital bodily functions but is the main channel for cholesterol removal. One trap clients fall into when managing cholesterol levels is restricting fat but failing to support fat purging. Turns out the body removes cholesterol by pooping it out. The liver recycles cholesterol into bile, which gets squirted into the bowel to help to keep bad flora in check and encourage bowel movement.
One trap clients fall into when managing cholesterol levels is restricting fat but failing to support fat purging. Turns out the body removes cholesterol by pooping it out.
5 Top Reasons For High Cholesterol
In my practice, I see the following 5 reasons as main factors for high cholesterol:
1. Insulin resistance/metabolic syndrome
This is the most common contributor to cholesterol. Insulin resistance reduces the ability of cells to absorb glucose, leading to elevated insulin levels. High insulin increases fat production in the liver, which in turn raises blood cholesterol levels. This process also slows bile production and bile flow, making it harder for people to purge fat from the body.People with insulin resistance will also find they have difficulty losing belly fat and maintaining lean muscle tone.
2. Constipation
Constipation slows bile excretion, causing the body to reabsorb cholesterol from bile, which can lead to higher cholesterol levels in the blood. It is estimated that half of American adults have slower than ideal transit time leaving a backdoor open for cholesterol to sneak back into the body.
3. Stress
The stress hormone cortisol is like your body's silent alarm system, adjusting your biology in the background when life demands start piling on your plate. Modern life is full of chronic stress that keeps cortisol levels elevated. It’s like the body senses a resource-scarce winter is coming so it ramps up cholesterol production and fat storage to prepare.
4. Menopause
Hormonal shift during peri-menopause and menopausal years is a biological stressor on the body making cholesterol increase during this time. Also, keep in mind cholesterol is a building block for estrogen. As estrogen levels decrease, there is a lot of excess cholesterol that is no longer needed for estrogen.
5. Excessive exercise Increase Artery Plaquing
Too much long-term endurance exercise (eg. long distance running and cycling) results in more artery plaque in people who take a more balanced approach with their fitness routine. Unfortunately, too much exercise beyond the body’s repair function checks two of the boxes above: pushing the body physiologically fills the body with stress hormones, and this creates inflammation that is beyond the body’s ability to repair.
Holistic Strategies to Lower Cholesterol
To effectively return cholesterol levels back to balance, two key factors must be present: reducing cholesterol production upstream by targeting inflammationary stressors and expediting clearance of the cholesterol from the body downstream to achieve homeostasis.
Metabolic Health
If clients struggle with weight loss, this would be considered a core imbalance because altered metabolism increases inflammatory stress, giving your body a reason to produce excess amounts of cholesterol as a liquid band-aid against chronic inflammatory wear and tear. This process is called insulin resistance, meaning the body favors fat storage and turns on destructive inflammation. To halt this process, I assess and address the metabolic imbalances in each client. In my blog post, Why Is Your Metabolism Slowing Down, I highlight key areas to target for insulin resistance. (https://www.tahliasagewellness.com/post/why-does-your-metabolism-slow-down)
2. Good Poop
A good poop reflects how well is your body purging cholesterol via making bile and having effortless, buttery smooth, regular bowel movement. The consistency and bulk of the bowel is a good indicator for if you are getting the right amount of fiber for your digestion, if there are irritations in the gut lining or if there is poor absorption that prevents you from getting nutrients from your food that help with repair.
3. Fat Purging Aid
Bitter herbs that stimulate fat purging and bile formation aid the body in removing excess cholesterol. Myself included, I’m not a big fan of bitter things. That’s why sometimes bitter support and fat purging nutrients are needed to invigorate and expedite the process of fat purging. Some of my favorite bitter herbs are: milk thistle, globe artichoke, dandelion root, gentian, and burdock.
4. Antioxidants
What makes cholesterol dangerous is a small percentage of cholesterol carries oxidative stress causing inflammation and damage wherever they go, so while we work upstream and downstream, antioxidant protection provides a certain level of shield or protection against this damage as an insurance policy.
In the end, cholesterol is just one of the metrics that reflects metabolic health. Oftentimes, the result client experience is better energy and effortless weight loss.
Feel free to book a free discovery consultation to learn how to support your cholesterol level naturally:
References
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10435832/#:~:text=Cholesterol%20presents%20some%20important%20characteristics,further%20propagation%20of%20peroxidation%20reactions.
https://journals.lww.com/menopausejournal/abstract/2006/13020/increased_urinary_cortisol_levels_during_the.12.aspx#:~:text=A%20rise%20in%20cortisol%20during%20the%20late%20state%20of%20the,vasomotor%20symptoms%20and%20depressed%20mood.
https://www.acc.org/Latest-in-Cardiology/Journal-Scans/2023/03/14/14/21/lifelong-endurance-exercise#:~:text=This%20prospective%2C%20observational%20study%20found,address%20atherosclerotic%20coronary%20clinical%20events.
Disclaimer: This article is written for information purposes only. Please consult your healthcare practitioner for medical advise.
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