Hidden Truth about Cholesterol

Today, I have in store for you:

• A controversial look at cholesterol and how you are being scammed
• Another delicious healthy lean-body meal idea
• A free demo of a nutrition program that designs balanced meals based on your own personal likes and dislikes

The Big Cholesterol Con

We all know that heart disease is one of the leading killers of people around the world, particularly highest in countries such as the US and Australia.

However, did you know that there are several medical studies worldwide that clearly show that higher cholesterol levels in the body actually increases longevity instead of decreasing it? Yes, you heard that right! People with high cholesterol have been statistically shown to live longer and healthier than people with low cholesterol in several studies. There are multiple references for this phenomenon in Shane Ellison's controversial book, The Hidden Truth about Cholesterol Lowering Drugs, as well as Sally Fallon and Mary Enig's book, Nourishing Traditions.

So why in the world are the pharmaceutical and medical industry pushing for practically everyone on the planet to "lower their cholesterol"? Well, the first, and more innocent answer, is flawed medical studies from decades ago that have been accepted as fact and never fully analyzed for their validity. Another answer is that this practice of recommending that half of the damn planet takes a cholesterol lowering medication (currently, statins), regardless of whether they truly have any real risk for heart disease, creates insane multi-squillion dollar profits for the drug companies!

As a perfectly absurd example of how doctors have been wrongly influenced by the drug companies... a couple years ago, I was a perfectly healthy 28 yr old, in great shape, exercising daily, eating a balanced healthy diet full of antioxidants and quality nutrition, no smoking, and with no real risk factors for heart disease, and just because my cholesterol level has been consistently measured over 200 for my entire life, my doctor recommended I consider using a statin drug.

Consider how outlandish this scenario is! The drug companies have hypnotized doctors into prescribing unnecessary prescription drugs to healthy young people with perfectly normal cholesterol levels that just happen to be over this arbitrary number of 200 that they've come up with. Luckily, I refused to be a guinea pig and fork over my hard earned duckets for potentially dangerous drugs, and decided to start researching this whole cholesterol and heart disease connection myself. Consider also that my father, who is now 60 years old, has had cholesterol levels slightly over 200 his entire life also (just like me), yet he is perfectly healthy at his ripe age of 60.

As time goes on and scientists continue to learn more about heart disease, it has become quite clear over the recent years that inflammation within the body (NOT cholesterol levels) is what causes plaque build up in the arteries and eventual heart disease. Inflammation can be caused by many personal factors such as stress, smoking, viruses, consumption of refined and/or hydrogenated fats (man-made trans fats), an imbalance of omega-6 polyunsaturated fats to omega-3 polyunsaturated fats in the diet, excess refined sugars in the diet, etc.

Here's a quick and dirty of how it works in general. Cholesterol is a healing substance within the body (among many other important functions), and responds to arterial inflammation by getting deposited in combination with other substances, forming "plaque" as a healing agent on the artery lining.

Levels of inflammation in your body can be measured with what's called a CRP test (c-reactive protein). The accuracy of this test still has room for improvement, as it can vary depending on the time of day and other factors, but it is a much better indication of heart disease risk than a cholesterol test (which is practically useless for determining heart disease risk). Another more important test than cholesterol levels for heart disease risk is a test for serum homocysteine levels. The next time your doctor wants you to get blood cholesterol tests, request CRP and homocysteine tests instead. He/she should be well aware of the validity of these tests if they are up to date.

Basically, if you have significant internal inflammation, this plaque will be deposited as a healing agent regardless of whether you have high or low cholesterol. On the other hand, if you don't have inflammation, high cholesterol levels just keep circulating without getting deposited on the artery linings. Therefore, it is more important to control inflammation rather than trying to lower your cholesterol.

Lowering your cholesterol doesn't attack the root of the problem (what is actually causing the inflammation in you). Lowering your cholesterol does nothing except to make the drug companies rich, and possibly leave you with a whole assortment of possible negative side-effects.

The good news is that preventing heart disease is about living a healthy lifestyle, not about throwing down a drug pill everyday. Controlling your inflammation to prevent heart disease is as easy as reducing the stress in your life (try deep breathing exercises, Qigong, yoga, etc.), maintaining a healthy weight, eating a high-antioxidant, highly nutritious unprocessed diet (as recommended in my Truth about Six Pack Abs program), and avoiding smoking and other causes of heavy free radical production in the body.

I hope this article has given you some helpful info about the real causes of heart disease and not the propaganda that has been shoved down your throat for years, based on flawed medical studies from 40-50 years ago, making drug companies filthy rich.

If you or anyone you care about is currently taking statins, or if you just want to learn more about cholesterol and the scandal that is revolving currently around statin drugs, please see The Hidden Truth about Cholesterol Lowering Drugs.

On a related topic, were you aware that there is also quite a controversy these days in the health industry over the fact that saturated fat is not necessarily bad for you, and can actually be downright good for you in some cases? I posted this article a few months ago, but since I have hundreds of new subscribers now, I thought I would mention this article again - The Truth about Saturated Fats

For the ladies - My colleague Joey Atlas shows you how to do one of the best exercises for a tight butt. Visit now and get a Butt, Hip, and Thigh Makeover!

Tired of Confusing and Conflicting Diet Advice? Try a F.REE demo of an innovative nutrition program that designs balanced meal plans for you based on your likes and dislikes.

Geary's Lean-Body Lunch of the Week

Here's another one of my delicious healthy meal ideas to help take your body to a whole new level of leanness, high energy, and vibrant health. As always...packed with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, fiber, healthy fats, and quality protein and carbs:

• Wild salmon melts (mix canned wild Alaskan salmon, diced onions, a little olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and pepper; add salmon salad mix to slices of sprouted whole grain bread, and top with provolone cheese; broil until melted
• 1 ripe sweet yellow mango (aka - champagne mango; smaller than normal mango but sweeter and easier to peel and eat)
• iced rooibos tea (aka - red tea) with stevia

Well my friend, that's all she wrote for this week. I hope you've enjoyed all of the info today and the meal idea, and feel free to pass along to anyone you know that wants to look good and feel good. I'll be back with you soon with more cutting-edge training & nutrition tips for your best body ever!

Stay lean,

Mike Geary
Founder - TruthAboutAbs.com

One of the Best Secrets for Becoming Lean for Life

I just returned Sunday night from a very relaxing vacation in warm sunny Jamaica, and I'm not happy about being back in snowy, cold New Jersey...but I guess I'll deal with it. Yes, I'll admit that even a fitness freak like me ate until I was stuffed everyday, and drank more rum than I can remember, packing on a few pounds while I was there. But now it's back to my normal lifestyle and the extra fat gained last week will be gone by the end of this week...I guarantee it! No excuses!

Anyway, I wanted to share something with you all that I noticed while I was in Jamaica on the beaches and in the pools.

One of the things that I do on a regular basis to help me continually learn about fitness success and failure is observing people's habits and actions. I feel that these observations are equally as important as reading books, journals, articles, etc. for improving my knowledge of what works and what doesn't in fitness.

Something that happens to me on a regular basis when I meet people is that once they find out that I'm a fitness professional, they start asking me questions about the things that they eat or how they exercise, and what my opinion is on it. I don't mind this, because it gives me some insight on exactly what people do, what they believe, and how things have worked for them.

I will qualify that I only give my advice if it is asked for. I never preach about fitness to someone who didn't ask for my advice. After all, I know I don't want people preaching to me about their expertise if I didn't ask for the advice.

So, one thing I noticed while on vacation last week was that out of hundreds and hundreds of people from all different countries that were walking around the sunny resorts in bathing suits, I only saw a grand total of about 4 people that had anything resembling six-pack abs. That's only 4 people out of probably close to 1000 that I saw throughout the 7 days!

This observation has nothing to do with their actions while on vacation, just about their current state of fitness. Now obviously most people, including myself, are not following their normal actions and behaviors on vacation that they would in normal life. That's not the point. I make observations about the habits and actions of both the fit people and the fat people on a daily basis to help determine successful vs. unsuccessful actions. It could be at grocery stores, at the gym, at restaurants, at the office, at someone's house...all are potential spots to learn why people are either fit or fat.

Start paying attention to the actions of the people around you on a daily basis, and their corresponding body shape, and you'll learn a lot. Here are some examples of things you may notice:

You might notice that the overweight woman at the office who claims she can never lose any flab is actually the first one in the kitchen whenever someone brings in free donuts or cookies. You might also notice that the guy with the beer gut, who says it's impossible for him to get rid of the gut, is skipping breakfast on a regular basis (a killer for your metabolism), and drinking 2 or 3 sodas a day without even realizing it. No wonder he's got a beer gut! On the other hand, you might also notice that the girl with the slim figure, who seemingly eats all kinds of junk food (and everyone gripes that she should be fat with all of that crap she eats), never actually finishes more than half of what she's eating. When you take a closer look, she's actually not eating that many calories day in and day out, and that's why she's lean. It's not always as it appears on the surface.

The point is that there's always an underlying reason why someone is either fat or fit, and it revolves around their lifestyle, their actions, their habits. If you look a little deeper, you'll discover all kinds of reasons why some people are fit and others are fat.

If you want to be included among the fitness elite, those 4 out of 1000 people that have six-pack abs, your fully comprehensive guide, revealing all of the secrets of the super-fit class, can be found at my Truth about Six Pack Abs site. Just for visiting, I'll also give you a FREE copy of my new ebook, Training & Nutrition Insider Secrets for a Lean-Body. Just follow the Free Newsletter link at the site to pick up your free copy.

Stay lean,

Mike Geary, NCSF-CPT, AFAA-CPT