Dietary Cholesterol: is it important?

[BigTex]

Chang Woock Lee, Teak V Lee, Vincent CW Chen, Steve Bui, and Steven E Riechman. Dietary Cholesterol Affects Skeletal Muscle Protein Synthesis Following Acute Resistance Exercise. FASEB Vol. 25, No. 1_supplement April 2011

Abstract

We have previously shown that high cholesterol (CL) intake resulted in greater lean mass gains in elderly men and women after 12 weeks of resistance training. However, little is known about the effects of CL on protein synthesis rates in skeletal muscle. We examined the effects of CL consumption on muscle protein synthesis in response to acute bouts of high intensity resistance exercise (RE).

Two groups of 20–28 year old, healthy, untrained adults underwent 10 days of either high CL (HC: 14mg/kg lean/day, ~800mg/day, n=8) or low CL (LC: 3.5mg/kg lean/day, <200mg/day, n=7) diet followed by acute bouts of high intensity unilateral leg exercises (leg press & extension: 5 sets, reps to failure, 85% of max strength, emphasis on eccentric contraction) where one leg was exercised while the other leg served as the non-exercise control. Biopsies were taken from vastus lateralis muscle 22h after exercise and cumulative myofibrillar protein synthesis (FSR) was measured using 2H2O as a tracer.

A significant difference in FSR (relative to control) was observed between the groups (HC: 94.6±23% vs. LC: −65.4±25%, p<0.01) with ANCOVA analysis (covariates: exercise history, lean mass, & degree of muscle soreness after RE). Our data suggest that CL may affect the anabolic response to RE possibly through its effect on membrane stability, inflammatory response, and lipid rafts/cell signaling.


*****Researchers compared a high (~800 mg/d) and a low (< 200 mg/d) cholesterol diet in young, healthy adults. The high cholesterol group had a nearly 3 times higher myofibrillar protein synthesis rate 22 hours after intense resistance exercise than the low cholesterol group. Myofibrillar protein synthesis is a measure of muscle growth, specifically how quickly your muscles are creating new proteins, so these findings again suggest a high cholesterol diet is beneficial for muscle growth.

So what does cholesterol do?

* Cholesterol increases membrane viscosity, which may influence membrane stability. This may have an influence on the extent to which muscle cells are damaged during exercise and the magnitude of the inflammatory response.

* Cholesterol seems to play a role in the muscle repair process by controlling inflammation (Omega 3 has a similar effect). Muscle damage creates inflammation, which leads to the recruitment of immune cells to assist with the recovery process.

* Cholesterol is essential for lipid raft formation. Lipid rafts assemble the components for signaling pathways and enhance signaling between pathways that play an important role for muscle hypertrophy, such as the growth factors IGF-I and mTOR. Cholesterol depletion can lead to protein mis-sorting, which reduces the signal transduction. Activation of mTOR corresponds with the found increase in myofibrillar protein synthesis after cholesterol consumption. Vegans will not have this effect.

Just as important, cholesterol is the precursor for anabolic hormones and is crucial for their production although the limiting factor seems to be the transportation of cholesterol in to the mitochondria.

There is also lots of evidence that eating a diet low in saturated fats, which are loaded with cholesterol will in turn cause a drastic reduction in the amount of total and free testosterone produced in the body.

 

[Kenny Croxdale]

TEXAS A&M (US) — The more LDL, or “bad cholesterol,” you have, the more muscle you build during resistance training.
Bad cholesterol's good for big muscles - Futurity

...after fairly vigorous workouts, adults who were in generally good health, but not normally physically active, gained the most muscle mass but also had the highest levels of the “bad” cholesterol—low-density lipoprotein (LDL).

...you do need a certain amount of LDL to gain more muscle mass,” says Steve Riechman, assistant professor of health and kinesiology at Texas A&M University.

Riechman says. “LDL serves a very useful purpose.

People often say, ‘I want to get rid of all my bad (LDL) cholesterol,’ but the fact is, if you did so, you would die. Everyone needs a certain amount of both LDL and HDL in their bodies. We need to change this idea of LDL always being the evil thing; we all need it, and we need it to do its job.”

Our tissues need cholesterol, and LDL delivers it. HDL, the good cholesterol, cleans up after the repair is done. And the more LDL you have in your blood, the better you are able to build muscle during resistance training.”

“It plays a very useful role, does the job it was intended to do, and we need to back off by always calling it bad cholesterol because it is not totally bad.”

 

[Guided_by_Voices]

LDL is also heavily involved (in a good way) in immune function, which also means it likely has an anti-cancer role as well as anti-infection.

 

[Vince]

Don't forget about the effects of sugar and health.

Diet Guidelines: No-No’s in a Nutshell

Here is a concise list of foods to avoid that are discussed in this chapter. You may want to memorize it or copy it, as it is worth learning. Sweets and Sweeteners • Powdered sweeteners (other than stevia) • Candies, especially so-called sugar-free types • Honey and fructose • Most “diet” and...

www.excelmale.com

 

[BigTex]

In 1980, Dr. Ronald Krauss and his colleagues discovered that LDL cholesterol is far from the simple "bad" particle it's commonly thought to be. It actually comes in a series of different sizes, known as subfractions. Some LDL subfractions are large and fluffy. Others are small and dense. ten years ago Canadian researchers reported that men with the highest number of small, dense LDL subfractions had four times the risk of developing clogged arteries than those with the fewest. Yet they found no such association for the large, fluffy particles. So you can actually have high cholesterol and high LDL and still be completely healthy. The small dense LDL ("B) particles can easily slip between the endothelial cells and then gain access inside the wall of the artery where they cause damage leading to atherosclerotic plaque. The large fluffy LDL (A) particles are harmless because they can not slip between the endothelial cells into the wall of the artery. LDL (A) can also increase HDL.

Rajman, I., Eacho, P. I., Chowienczyk, P. J., & Ritter, J. M. (1999). LDL particle size: an important drug target?. British journal of clinical pharmacology, 48(2), 125–133. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2125.1999.00991.x

Dr. Krauss further found that when people replace the carbohydrates in their diet with fat--saturated or unsaturated -- the number of small, dense LDL particles decreases. This leads to the highly counterintuitive notion that replacing your breakfast cereal with eggs and bacon could actually reduce your risk of heart disease.

Men, more than women, are predisposed to having small, dense LDL. However, the propensity is highly flexible and, according to Dr. Krauss, can be switched on when people eat high-carb, low-fat diets or switched off when they reduce carbs and eat diets high in fat, including the saturated variety. "There's a subgroup of people at high risk of heart disease who may respond well to diets low in fat," says Dr. Krauss. "But the majority of healthy people seem to derive very little benefit from these low-fat diets, in terms of heart-disease risk factors, unless they also lose weight and exercise. And if a low-fat diet is also loaded with carbs, it can actually result in adverse changes in blood lipids."

Dr. Jeff Volec has also studied this area and writes, two factors influence the amount of fat coursing through your veins. The first, of course, is the amount of fat you eat. But the more important factor is less obvious. Turns out, your body makes fat from carbohydrates. It works like this: The carbs you eat (particularly starches and sugar) are absorbed into your bloodstream as sugar. As your carb intake rises, so does your blood sugar. This causes your body to release the hormone insulin. Insulin's job is to return your blood sugar to normal, but it also signals your body to store fat. As a result, your liver starts converting excess blood sugar to triglycerides, or fat.

Interesting graph from this study which shows when America was told how bad cholesterol was we were encouraged to replace butter with margarine, and cut the consumption of fats and proteins. We were also encouraged to eat more carbohydrates. As you can see from the mid 70's carbohydrate consumption increased drastically. Oddly enough the rates of obesity and diabetes increased in the same line.

 

[Gman86]

Man this thread is literally music to my ears. The body wouldn’t have something that’s only purpose is to work against us or try to kill us. LDL will only cause issues in the presence of a malfunctioning body, aka insulin resistance and most of their LDL being small dense particles. But as long as u keep ur body healthy, u want LDL fairly high, due to all the benefits it has within the body. Like I’ve mentioned before, I don’t like to see my LDL get much lower than 200

 

[BigTex]

The next time you get blood work order the Advanced Lipid Profile with Cardio IQ (Quest).
The test may take a week to be evaluated. This will test your LDL particle sizes including LIPOPROTEIN (a) and APOLIPOPROTEIN B.

I found that a few dietary manipulations can help this area

1. Levels of small, dense LDL particles are closely correlated with carbohydrate intake.
2. Saturated fat increases levels of HDL (good) cholesterol.
3. Saturated fat increases levels of large buoyant LDL-A (good) cholesterol.
4. We need to include a diet rich in omega 6 fatty acids and omega 3 fatty acids with a ratio
of 3:1
5. Reduce the amount of sugars especially fructose and high fructose corn syrup you take
in.
Remember with Omega 6, we need them but not as much as we usually take in (10:1/30:1). Omega 6 are considered inflammatory in nature while Omega 3 are anti-inflammatory.

Include Coconut Oil

Coconut oil contains a high amount of saturated fats called medium chain triglycerides (MCT). Your cells burn MCTs for energy while storing very little as fat, boosting your metabolism and supporting your immune system. While eating more MTC’s will cause your cholesterol levels to rise, it is not considered to be a negative thing and will not increase our chance of cardiac problems.

Researchers found that the saturated fat from coconuts does not negatively impact the cholesterol profile. Instead, the coconut oil’s overall effect raised HDL while lowering triglycerides and small LDL cholesterol particles (LDL-B), which is definitely a good thing.

Cooking with Ghee butter is another good option as well as using Avocado oil.