What are the implications of our fat cells
accumulating high levels of cholesterol?
In this video, I explore that question
while continuing to put a focus on activities of the egg industry.
"Dietary Cholesterol and Inflammation from Abdominal Obesity"
There is abundant evidence that dietary cholesterol
increases cardiovascular disease risk.
The misdirection of the egg industry focuses on fasting levels
of LDL cholesterol, which are only raised by about 10 percent;
however, the main effect of diet is on the post-prandial state,
the after-a-meal state.
For about 4 hours after a high fat/high cholesterol meal,
there is oxidative stress, artery dysfunction,
and arterial inflammation, which happens after eating
more than 140 mg of cholesterol, which is less than a single egg.
So, while the egg industry spends hundreds of millions
trying to convince people dietary cholesterol is harmless,
there are good reasons for limiting cholesterol intake
in persons at risk for vascular disease.
But wait, vascular disease, coronary heart disease,
is our #1 killer of men and women; so, aren’t we all at risk.
Yes, it is seldom understood that this essentially means
all people in developed countries who expect to live
a long life should cut down on eggs.
In response, the egg industry has experimented
with ways to reduce the cholesterol content of eggs by,
for example, feeding laying hens cholesterol-lowering statin drugs,
or even techniques to reduce cholesterol content
in egg yolks once the egg is formed, using things
like solvent extraction like fingernail polish remover—acetone.
However, such methods have not been scaled up
due to reasons such as food safety.
Or, the egg industry can spend its time going after
new plant-based competitors like the company Eat Just.
The USDA investigated allegations of misconduct
by the American Egg Board, which is run by the federal government,
like the allegation that Egg Board staff threatened
the CEO of Eat Just in emails they exchanged
about putting a “hit” on him.
And indeed, they discovered emails included references such as,
“Can we pool our money and put a hit on him?”
and having “old buddies from Brooklyn pay him a visit.”
What corrective actions did the USDA take?
The American Egg Board has admitted
to the inappropriateness of such comments
and apologized. And the Egg Board staff
and board members will be required to complete
additional training regarding proper email etiquette and ethics.
Dietary cholesterol may also contribute to inflammation
in your body fat that can spill over into your bloodstream.
Body fat is a major site for cholesterol storage in humans.
Your fat cells can accumulate high levels of free cholesterol,
which cannot be broken down by cells
and is toxic at high concentrations.
And, that may lead to macrophage accumulation.
Here’s a fat biopsy. See those little blue dots?
Those are dying macrophages which are a type of immune cells
that can spill their contents of inflammatory chemicals
that are believed to result in many of the metabolic
derangements that accompany obesity, including insulin resistance,
systemic inﬂammation, and atherosclerosis.
So, reducing excessive dietary cholesterol intake is suggested
as a simple way to attenuate
obesity-associated metabolic diseases.
Yeah, but has it actually been put to the test in people?
We know dietary cholesterol promotes the swelling of fat cells
and belly fat Inflammation in monkeys,
but that’s like research showing dietary cholesterol
directly induces acute intestinal inﬂammation
in both mice and zebraﬁsh.
What are you supposed to do with that information?
There just weren’t any human studies until...now.
Vegetarians consume significantly less cholesterol.
Although eggs are the single largest source of cholesterol
in the American diet, more than any of the individual types of meat.
Meat in general is the #1 overall source
(with more cholesterol coming from chicken than from red meat).
Researchers took biopsies from the vegetarians
and not only did their fat average fewer than half
the pro-inflammatory macrophages compared to biopsies
taken from omnivores, the meat-eaters had 50 percent greater
expression of tumor necrosis factor in their abdominal fat,
which is a potent inflammatory marker,
though there’s lots of stuff in meat besides cholesterol
that could have contributed to the inflammatory state.
But what else do you need to know
beyond the bump in heart disease risk?
Pre-eminent Harvard Nutrition professor Mark Hegsted once wrote
that if cholesterol were introduced as a new food additive,
we would cite the evidence that it raises cholesterol
and heart disease risk, and the conclusion
would almost certainly be that cholesterol
could not be considered safe at any level,
because any intake level above zero increases the risk
of our #1 killer disease.