Oxidised Cholesterol

[reality]

Is it a concern from cooked eggs, meat and butter etc?

 

[reality]

Since we all know oxidised PUFA is harmful, wouldn’t oxidised cholesterol have a similar effect?

 

[dukesbobby777]

From Ray’s article on cholesterol:

Dietitians often recommend eating poached salmon, rather than "red meat," to lower cholesterol. Experimenters have measured the toxic oxidized cholesterol in different foods prepared in a variety of ways. Steaming salmon produced several times as much oxidized cholesterol as frying it, because of the longer cooking time that allowed the polyunsaturated fatty acids to break down, producing toxins such as acrolein and free radicals that oxidize the cholesterol and other components of the fish. The toxic cholesterol content of the steamed salmon was much higher than that of beef cooked at a high temperature.

When oxidized polyunsaturated oils, such as corn oil or linoleic acid, are added to food, they appear in the blood lipids, where they accelerate the formation of cholesterol deposits in arteries (Staprans, et al., 1994, 1996).

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.

Many antioxidant nutrients act like a thyroid supplement did in the 1934 rabbit experiments, preventing atherosclerosis even when extra toxic cholesterol is given to the animals. People who eat seafood get much more selenium in their diet than people who eat nothing from the sea, and selenium is one of the extremely protective nutrients that prevent atherosclerosis in animal experiments with excess cholesterol.

It is well established that several antioxidant nutrients are protective factors in heart disease. The medical establishment has expended a great amount of money and time in the last 60 years fighting the use of vitamin E or selenium for treating or preventing heart disease, though many physicians now take vitamin E themselves. But people who study free radical chemistry recognize that polyunsaturated fats are highly susceptible to oxidation, and that saturated fats tend to slow their degradation, acting to some extent as antioxidants. Several experiments and observations have shown that cholesterol itself can protect against damaging oxidation of polyunsaturated fats, protecting DNA and other vital components of the cell. A consistent program to prevent the oxidation of cholesterol would have to include all of the vitamins and minerals that are involved in antioxidant defense, avoidance of nutrients that exacerbate the destructive oxidations, and an effort to normalize the hormones and other factors, such as carbon dioxide, that have protective effects against free radical oxidation. A low level of cholesterol might increase susceptibility to the oxidants.

 

[reality]

I’m not talking about cholesterol itself, but the oxidation of it when cooking foods at high heat (eggs?). That is not harmful?

 

[dukesbobby777]

I’m not talking about cholesterol itself, but the oxidation of it when cooking foods at high heat (eggs?). That is not harmful?

Yeah it’s kind of answered in the first paragraph. He’s saying that more oxidized cholesterol is damaging in the high PUFA foods than the saturated ones. I copied and pasted the other paragraphs because he talks about things to protect against it.

So what I’m wondering is, does vitamin E and/or selenium protect fully against the effects of oxidized cholesterol? Or do they ‘just help’? Does he therefore see consumption of a lot of oxidized cholesterol as quite a negative thing? (I presume so). Many here might be having cooked fish, meat and cheese as regular staples each day. Or maybe he just sees it as PUFA causing all of the problems again, and good thyroid status protecting against it (which is how I interpreted what he’s said above).

Eggs and milk are perhaps the safest things in that respect. Milk, you can get raw or unhomogenised (not sure if pasteurization damages dietary cholesterol). Eggs, you have control over how you cook it (boiled/poached/fried with a soft yolk). Or some here eat them raw in smoothies.

Cooked meat, fish and cheese also come high with AGEs.

That’s why the raw foodists believe they are winning. Less toxicity from cooked foods.