A new study has produced strong evidence that red meat consumption is a trigger for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), demonstrating how it alters gut bacteria and immune activity in ways that worsen inflammation. It furthers scientific knowledge of the many pathways involved in inflammation, taking…
My point is that it was way more rare than what people’s diets look like today. Not zero but not dominant. Wide reliance on plants is even true before modern agriculture. For example:
Here we present the isotopic evidence of pronounced plant reliance among Late Stone Age hunter-gatherers from North Africa (15,000–13,000 cal BP), predating the advent of agriculture by several millennia
I myself am a victim of the modern diet, and lack of exercise. I almost died of high cholesterol and other related factors, before I started to eat better and be physically active.
I’m a firm believer in a varied diet, and that most people should have a less meaty intake.
Just, we are designed to be hunters and eat red meat
My parents fed me red meat for almost every dinner I can recall growing up. I’m early 30s and my cholesterol is very high. I was able to drop my cholesterol significantly in one month by changing my diet to mostly vegan with chicken and fish once or twice a week. Switched my morning eggs out to egg whites. Cooked in avocado oil instead of butter.
Ketogenic ABF Can increase LDL from the population average considerably in a few months
A long term standard western diet can increase LDL through glycation and oxidation damage to circulating LDL, preventing the liver from reusing that LDL and producing more LDL (so there is a build up of usable LDL and damaged LDL showing up as elevated LDL)
All that being said, LDL, and more generally Cholesterol - IS NOT A DISEASE. You would die if you didn’t have any, the body will produce it on demand if its not consumed in the diet. The link between LDL (undamaged) and heart disease (the lipid heart hypothesis) is not based on repeatable science, and isn’t holding up with modern scrutiny
Interesting personal assumptions but my diet was quite healthy aside from the daily eggs and meat consumption. As I mentioned in my comment, I replaced my dietary proteins from red meat often to red meat seldom and replaced it with plant proteins. When you consume high cholesterol foods, you’re likely going to have high blood LDL. That’s just physics. The study you linked even says this (as well as the fact that more and better studies are needed for more precise conclusions).
When you consume high cholesterol foods, you’re likely going to have high blood LDL.
It’s not a dose independent response, if you eat only cholesterol (like only egg yolks for a month), you will find adding even more egg yolks does not increase the LDL, the excess gets processed into other nutrients or excreted. The feedback mechanisms in regulating LDL are very good, its just a optimization that food cholesterol can be used for circulating LDL, if you didn’t eat any cholesterol at all your body would still make LDL.
More generally Cholesterol, and specifically LDL, is not a disease.
artificially lowering LDL is not actually good for your health. Its far more impactful to measure atherosclerotic risk directly with plaque imaging (CAC for example).
When you consume high cholesterol foods, you’re likely going to have high blood LDL. That’s just physics.
No, that’s not how it works. Please read the paper I cited. That’s like saying we can breathe water because H2O has O in it. Human bodies are very complex. A strict diet can reduce LDL by around 8-15%. Nowhere near the dramatic decline you indicated. LDL is mostly determined by genetics, with 40-60% heritable. Other causes are related to genetic mutations, excess weight, and metabolic issues like diabetes. Less important factors include menopause, age, hypothyroidism, and certain medications. You likely had a comorbidity. From the paper:
Conclusions: In typical British diets replacing 60% of saturated fats by other fats and avoiding 60% of dietary cholesterol would reduce blood total cholesterol by about 0.8 mmol/l (that is, by 10-15%), with four fifths of this reduction being in low density lipoprotein cholesterol.
Primates in general are designed to eat red meat. Chimps, our closest cousin, go on regular hunts against other primates, and eat them
My point is that it was way more rare than what people’s diets look like today. Not zero but not dominant. Wide reliance on plants is even true before modern agriculture. For example:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-024-02382-z
I myself am a victim of the modern diet, and lack of exercise. I almost died of high cholesterol and other related factors, before I started to eat better and be physically active.
I’m a firm believer in a varied diet, and that most people should have a less meaty intake.
Just, we are designed to be hunters and eat red meat
My parents fed me red meat for almost every dinner I can recall growing up. I’m early 30s and my cholesterol is very high. I was able to drop my cholesterol significantly in one month by changing my diet to mostly vegan with chicken and fish once or twice a week. Switched my morning eggs out to egg whites. Cooked in avocado oil instead of butter.
That’s very impressive. Dietary factors generally account for a very small proportion of blood LDL. Your diet must have been very poor and you likely have some known genetic mutations which greatly exacerbate the issue.
This isn’t quite accurate, dietary interventions can have huge impact on LDL.
Seed Oils (Industrial oils from processing plant seeds, or vegetable oils) - are known to dramatically lower LDL… Oreo Cookie Treatment Lowers LDL Cholesterol More Than High-Intensity Statin therapy in a Lean Mass Hyper-Responder on a Ketogenic Diet: A Curious Crossover Experiment
Ketogenic ABF Can increase LDL from the population average considerably in a few months
A long term standard western diet can increase LDL through glycation and oxidation damage to circulating LDL, preventing the liver from reusing that LDL and producing more LDL (so there is a build up of usable LDL and damaged LDL showing up as elevated LDL)
All that being said, LDL, and more generally Cholesterol - IS NOT A DISEASE. You would die if you didn’t have any, the body will produce it on demand if its not consumed in the diet. The link between LDL (undamaged) and heart disease (the lipid heart hypothesis) is not based on repeatable science, and isn’t holding up with modern scrutiny
Interesting personal assumptions but my diet was quite healthy aside from the daily eggs and meat consumption. As I mentioned in my comment, I replaced my dietary proteins from red meat often to red meat seldom and replaced it with plant proteins. When you consume high cholesterol foods, you’re likely going to have high blood LDL. That’s just physics. The study you linked even says this (as well as the fact that more and better studies are needed for more precise conclusions).
It’s not a dose independent response, if you eat only cholesterol (like only egg yolks for a month), you will find adding even more egg yolks does not increase the LDL, the excess gets processed into other nutrients or excreted. The feedback mechanisms in regulating LDL are very good, its just a optimization that food cholesterol can be used for circulating LDL, if you didn’t eat any cholesterol at all your body would still make LDL.
More generally Cholesterol, and specifically LDL, is not a disease.
artificially lowering LDL is not actually good for your health. Its far more impactful to measure atherosclerotic risk directly with plaque imaging (CAC for example).
No, that’s not how it works. Please read the paper I cited. That’s like saying we can breathe water because H2O has O in it. Human bodies are very complex. A strict diet can reduce LDL by around 8-15%. Nowhere near the dramatic decline you indicated. LDL is mostly determined by genetics, with 40-60% heritable. Other causes are related to genetic mutations, excess weight, and metabolic issues like diabetes. Less important factors include menopause, age, hypothyroidism, and certain medications. You likely had a comorbidity. From the paper:
I tend to eat very little red meat now, maybe once a month. I used to eat it every day