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Featured Weekly Article
What We All Need to Know About Cholesterol!
by SVA Dr Marianne Teitelbaum
The word cholesterol conjures up many negative emotions nowadays. Doctors have taught us that cholesterol causes heart attacks and strokes and that if our cholesterol becomes too elevated, it should be brought down with diet and exercise. If we are not able to lower our cholesterol through changing our diet and lifestyle, then they resort to the use of “statin” drugs, or, drugs that lower cholesterol.
The “holistic” doctors in America feel that these drugs are too dangerous, since they come riddled with side effects and toxicity for the liver and kidneys. Instead, they try to address the cholesterol issue through the use of red yeast rice and fish oil. All in all, there is little consensus on how to ideally control and lower bad cholesterol, but it would be helpful to understand this issue a little more.
For example, let’s look at the issue of carbohydrates. We know now that white sugar and white flour, both carbohydrates, are highly refined nutrients that have been shown not to be good for our health. But does this mean that we need to avoid all carbohydrates all the time? “Carbs” have suddenly been lumped into one category, and everyone goes to extremes in avoiding all of them. This means that the good carbs, such as whole grains like millet, oats, barley, buckwheat, rice, quinoa are also left out of our diet… We, as americans, have developed a typical mind-set of throwing out the baby with the bath water!
The same thing holds true for the cholesterol issue! Yes, there are some foods that contain cholesterol that are not good for you to consume, such as red meats, aged cheeses, fried foods. However, to avoid all cholesterol in the diet is not a good idea either. Why? To find in-depth yet practical answers I go to the ancients teachings of Ayurveda, the time-old medicine of India as practiced and taught to me by Vaidya R.K. Mishra.
Since Ayurveda is an ancient science, it was given to man through the revelations of seers and not the microscopic vision of lab tools and research; yet modern science is nowadays confirming every single one of its findings. So according to the ancient seers who cognized Ayurveda, the human body is made up of many physical channels (srotas) which which act as elimination channels for discarded materials – such as urine, sweat, blood, food, toxins, and so on. The seers knew and explained that if these channels were to either shrink, clog up or become inflamed, then whatever was trying to get through the channel would have a difficult time being evacuated. Like anything else, these channels need proper care to function optimally. Diet constitutes a very important aspect of their care.
In line with that thought, Vaidya Mishra teaches how to identify modern foods that shrink our channels, such are the family of the nightshades (eggplant, bell peppers, white potatoes and tomatoes). Then, the foods that clog them can be such items as hard aged cheeses, soy products, large beans (garbanzo, pinto, kidney, lima beans, etc), bananas, heavy meats, cold dairy, processed foods, leftovers, etc. The foods that inflame the channels are sour/acidic and pungent foods – vinegar, onions, garlic, to name a few.
To give you a concrete example from our clinic in Cinnaminson, N.J., I had 3 patients who followed a vegan diet, eating a lot of soy, never consuming any animal products like butter, cheese, meats or milk, and all 3 dropped dead of a heart attack at a young age. The high reliance on soy clogged their channels. The artery is one type of channel, so in this case, their heart attack and their clogged channels were directly co-related. Yet, all 3 patients had low cholesterol and were very thin…
On the other hand, if you are eating certain food items that contains a type of cholesterol which can be easily absorbed from the channels into the cells, such as warm milk and ghee, the arteries or other channels won’t clog, even though both these foods contain cholesterol.
So, the real issue is whether the food is channel-clogging, not whether or not it contains cholesterol! Trans fats and hydrogenated oils, which are one molecule away from plastic may not have cholesterol, yet they can severely clog the arteries since our bodies can’t metabolize that type of chemical, they cannot accept it in from the channels and absorb it into the cells.
In addition to the issue of the food being channel-clogging or not, we need to address our own digestion, and make sure it is in good shape, so that we can digest food into small enough particles that can go from the channel and be absorbed across a delicate cell wall (which is itself made of cholesterol!) and nourish the cell. Once the food is inside the cell then the cell can use it to make energy, etc.
The liver manufactures the bile, which is held in the gall bladder. The gall bladder squirts the bile into the small intestines when we eat. The bile itself contains two “detergents” which emulsify the fats in the foods we eat into small enough particles so we can use them. In many people, probably the majority of people in the world, the bile gets too thick over time, turning into a “sludge”. At this point, we need to thin out this sludge so that the bile can flow, otherwise it can remain stuck in the gall bladder, giving symptoms over time (heartburn, gas, bloating, gall bladder attacks, fullness under the breastbone or under the ribs on the right).
If the bile remains thick for too long, cholesterol gall stones can develop. At this point, the patient will have severe gall bladder symptoms usually and will require removal of the gall bladder.
I see many patients, several every single week, where the bile is too thick, and we use certain remedies, such as SVA Triphala or SVA High Pitta Triphala (and other remedies) to thin out the bile.
Once the bile starts flowing, they can digest better, their acid reflux goes away. In fact, at least half of my acid reflux patients don’t technically have a problem with making too much stomach acid, but instead have this problem with sludge in the gall bladder instead. In these cases, the drugs like Prilosec and Nexium do not help them, since the underlying problem is the gall bladder and not the stomach. I can’t tell you how many patients I’ve had through my 26 years in practice who had instant relief of these symptoms once we addressed their gall bladder. I’ve saved hundreds of patients from having gall bladder surgery as well. When the doctors see the sludge in the gall bladder, they want to remove the gall bladder. But they do not realize that all that really needs to be done is to thin out the bile.
So, what happens when the bile gets too thick and doesn’t flow well? You guessed it! The cholesterol remains in the bloodstream because the bile is not there to remove it out of circulation. Now you can see that just taking a remedy, whether it’s a statin drug or fish oil (which will only bother the gall bladder even more) or red yeast rice isn’t the answer!
We need to help the patient digest their fats better so that the cholesterol goes out of the “channel” (here the artery) and into the cell so that the cells can use this much-needed cholesterol.
And where is cholesterol used?
First, the brain and all the nerve cells, including the myelin sheath (covering to the nerve cells) are all made of cholesterol. This is why the ancient doctors said ghee would be good for the brain. (They also said that ghee made from yogurt cream was the easiest to digest, containing rare and much-needed essential fatty acids, and wouldn’t make the cholesterol go up or put weight on the body – we are so fortunate to have Vaidya Mishra making the divine “Mum’s Ghee” for all of us!)
The adrenal glands themselves are made of cholesterol and their hormones are also made out of cholesterol. The reproductive hormones are also made out of cholesterol (which is why the ancient doctors said that women who ate ghee would be fertile. Latest research shows that women who take whole milk got pregnant much more easily than those who drank skim milk.) I can’t tell you how many infertile women I’ve helped conceive by adding back whole milk and ghee to their diets.
And speaking of whole milk – there is an epidemic of osteopenia and osteoporosis (thinning of the bones) in our country since we started drinking 2% and lowfat/non-fat milk. It turns out the fat in the milk delivers the cholesterol to the bones, and if you take the fat out of the milk, then the calcium in the milk goes in one end of the channel and out the other end, never properly nourishing the bones along the way! But always boil milk first and drink it warm, to make the fat more digestible.
And finally, did you know that the cholesterol in your blood migrates up to your skin – and when the sun hits your skin, this cholesterol is converted into Vitamin D? And if you’ve been listening to Vaidya over the past few years, he has lots to say about Vitamin D and its absorption. He now makes his transdermal creams and roll-ons of Vitamin D since this vitamin is fat-soluble and if taken orally can upset the liver.
So, now you can see how important cholesterol is to our minds and bodies! And one other important point – our bodies need about 1,000 mg of cholesterol every day. We can’t possibly get enough of that in our diets (we can get about 200 mg in the diet), so our liver has to manufacture the rest – that’s how important it is to our life!
I have had tremendous success treating Multiple Sclerosis in my practice. I have identified numerous reasons why a patient might get MS – mercury, aspartame, MSG burning the myelin sheath, EMF toxicity, parasites eating the myelin sheath.
But I remember the very first patient I treated with MS told me that hers developed after following a strict low-fat diet and doing too much aerobic exercise (which burns fat). She too had starved her nerve tissue and myelin sheath of fats.
Once I showed her how to reincorporate the good fats in her diet, she was pleased to see that she did not gain weight, that her body was actually absorbing these good fats and using them, and she was shocked to see her MS go away!
Thank you to the ancient rishis for leaving us their divine knowledge of Ayurveda to help alleviate tremendous suffering in the world. And even more thanks to Vaidya Mishra for training us doctors to help our patients at this very deep level. So many of us are grateful for all the work you do on our behalf!
Next week’s article: “Ah sugar! Sugar! Sugar!”
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