Does Ray Peat Actually Say Here That High LDL Can Be Bad?

Mufasa

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From: Cholesterol, longevity, intelligence, and health.
Ray Peat said:
Stress accelerates the oxidation of the polyunsaturated fatty acids in the body, so people who consume unsaturated vegetable oils and fish will have some oxidized cholesterol in their tissues. The constant turnover of cholesterol in the tissues tends to lower the proportion of the toxic oxidized degradation products of cholesterol, but in hypothyroidism, the use of cholesterol is slowed, allowing the toxic forms to accumulate.

So in an ideal situation, LDL is low because it is constantly turned into pregnenolone through the action of thyroid and using vitamin A. But when LDL is high and there are a lot of free radicals (for example, because of a high PUFA burden), than high LDL can cause the formation of cholesterol deposits in arteries, which increase the risk of CVD.

Do I understand this correctly? @haidut

I'm asking this because my girlfriend wants me to inform her father about cholesterol (who has high BP and athersclerosis).
I'm afraid that if I explain him the benefits about cholesterol.
He may stop his cholesterol lowering medication.
But if he then for example continues eating french fries, fried in sunflower oil, his risk of dying of CVD may actually become higher.
 

Mito

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So in an ideal situation, LDL is low because it is constantly turned into pregnenolone through the action of thyroid and using vitamin A. But when LDL is high and there are a lot of free radicals (for example, because of a high PUFA burden), than high LDL can cause the formation of cholesterol deposits in arteries, which increase the risk of CVD.
I found this video helpful to understand LDL and PUFA’s role in CVD.

 
OP
M

Mufasa

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Thanks for the video @Mito.

It is interesting, he believes that LDL in high amounts is contributing to atherosclerosis.
Mainly because if you have more LDL, than the body can use than it will stay too long in the blood.
And since the membrane of LDL consist of PUFA's, and the blood is high in things that could oxidize that PUFA,
at some point the LDL will be damaged which initiates the process atherosclerosis.

I wonder if PUFA's effect of lowering LDL, is because it brings LDL from the blood to your arteries.
 

Mito

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Mainly because if you have more LDL, than the body can use than it will stay too long in the blood. And since the membrane of LDL consist of PUFA's, and the blood is high in things that could oxidize that PUFA, at some point the LDL will be damaged which initiates the process atherosclerosis.
A healthy metabolism (thyroid) should keep LDL receptor activity high. I’d assume a low PUFA diet would reduce the amount of PUFA in the LDL membrane further reducing the chance of oxidation.

I wonder if PUFA's effect of lowering LDL, is because it brings LDL from the blood to your arteries.
It’s because PUFA esterifies cholestrol so it moves from the blood to other tissues (including arteries).

You might like this podcast as it explains the ideas in detail. https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/2017/03/19/what-to-do-about-high-cholesterol/

I’d also suggest reading some of @Travis posts about CVD. He believes adequate Vitamin C is crucial to prevent the arterial damage in the first place so you don’t have to worry so much about the LDL particles repairing the damage and getting oxidized (at least that’s my understanding of his thoughts). Here is one of his posts on the subject.
The Relationship Between Serum Level Of Manganese And Severity Of Coronary Atherosclerosis
 

haidut

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I wonder if PUFA's effect of lowering LDL, is because it brings LDL from the blood to your arteries

Your arteries, liver and muscles, thus causing NAFLD and other issues.
 

Travis

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I’d also suggest reading some of @Travis posts about CVD. He believes adequate Vitamin C is crucial to prevent the arterial damage in the first place so you don’t have to worry so much about the LDL particles repairing the damage and getting oxidized (at least that’s my understanding of his thoughts). Here is one of his posts on the subject.
The Relationship Between Serum Level Of Manganese And Severity Of Coronary Atherosclerosis

Not quite! I see the vitamin C as doing two things: increasing procollagen synthesis and lowering Lp(a), both of which it's been shown to do. Most fundamentally, it repairs the damage nearly as fast as it can be created while keeping the artery wall with a high zeta potential—nothing will bind to it. The liver downregualtes Lp(a) because it knows it's will not be needed, an adhesive protein (Lp(a)) which is the 'backup plan' for keeping arterial wall the in the absence of vitamin C.

This is the Pauling explanation and it fully complies with all evidence that I've seen; but since it's not really concerned about what causes the damage in the first place, is does not actually contradict all of the others (just some of them): High high blood pressure, ω−6 fatty acids, and reactive nitrogen species can still all be risk factors under the Pauling paradigm: an explanation more concerned more about the molecular mechanics of post-damage events.

A person could accept the Pauling explanation while adding to it, perhaps forming a ω−6-Pauling chimera hypothesis which goes further to explain the whole event.
 

benaoao

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This podcast from Masterjohn is pretty much the best recap on cholesterol, in a layman way, free from dogma and bias. Very very good. As a pharmacist myself, I wish we had lectures from this man.

Quoting what could be helpful for anyone with a total cholesterol / HDL ratio over 4 (3 being my target as well)

the four key factors driving the LDL receptor activity are cholesterol content of the liver, insulin (resistance/sensitivity), thyroid hormone, and inflammation.


If you clearly have psychological stress, circadian rhythm disruption, emotional stress, any kind of dysregulation of cortisol, any kind of inflammatory state, or chronic infection, clearly you need to lead with resolving the stress response because that’s gonna be the upstream factor that’s gonna counteract thyroid hormone.


If you have chronic inflammation, then you can have persisting hyperlipidemia that is not supposed to be there because you have inflammation that’s not supposed to be there


If none of those culprits are present, then I think there’s really two big dietary changes that are gonna have an effect.


One is your carbohydrate content. In the context of insulin sensitivity replacing fat with carbohydrate is going to improve blood lipids. And in pretty much any context, replacing saturated or monounsaturated fat with polyunsaturated fat is going to lower your blood lipids. To a lesser extent, replacing saturated fat with monounsaturated fat would have an effect, especially in the context of a low-PUFA diet.

Regarding inflammation, I’d also think of chronical acidity from the diet - debated elsewhere in this forum (the topic about Salt - sulfur aminos - phosphate in junk food - low potassium low magnesium diets)

I wouldn’t take lipids too lightly, this basic test is paramount.
 

LUH 3417

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This podcast from Masterjohn is pretty much the best recap on cholesterol, in a layman way, free from dogma and bias. Very very good. As a pharmacist myself, I wish we had lectures from this man.

Quoting what could be helpful for anyone with a total cholesterol / HDL ratio over 4 (3 being my target as well)



Regarding inflammation, I’d also think of chronical acidity from the diet - debated elsewhere in this forum (the topic about Salt - sulfur aminos - phosphate in junk food - low potassium low magnesium diets)

I wouldn’t take lipids too lightly, this basic test is paramount.
Is coffee a source of acidity in the diet?
 

lampofred

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From: Cholesterol, longevity, intelligence, and health.


So in an ideal situation, LDL is low because it is constantly turned into pregnenolone through the action of thyroid and using vitamin A. But when LDL is high and there are a lot of free radicals (for example, because of a high PUFA burden), than high LDL can cause the formation of cholesterol deposits in arteries, which increase the risk of CVD.

Do I understand this correctly? @haidut

I'm asking this because my girlfriend wants me to inform her father about cholesterol (who has high BP and athersclerosis).
I'm afraid that if I explain him the benefits about cholesterol.
He may stop his cholesterol lowering medication.
But if he then for example continues eating french fries, fried in sunflower oil, his risk of dying of CVD may actually become higher.

I think it would only be safe for him to wean off statins if he starts taking T4+T3 to keep his cholesterol in a good place.
 

mamakitty

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This podcast from Masterjohn is pretty much the best recap on cholesterol, in a layman way, free from dogma and bias. Very very good. As a pharmacist myself, I wish we had lectures from this man.

Quoting what could be helpful for anyone with a total cholesterol / HDL ratio over 4 (3 being my target as well)



Regarding inflammation, I’d also think of chronical acidity from the diet - debated elsewhere in this forum (the topic about Salt - sulfur aminos - phosphate in junk food - low potassium low magnesium diets)

I wouldn’t take lipids too lightly, this basic test is paramount.
So, he is saying replacing sfa with pufa is going to lower cholesterol. Which means his recommendation is to eat pufa including fish oil and canola oil, and not touch saturated fat? Is this the take home message here or am I getting it wrong?
 

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