> Lurisia Dale wrote:
> 
> "Dr. Stephen Phinney and colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of
> Technology conducted a normal caloric intake metabolic ward trial
> involving nine
> healthy, lean men.  These men consumed nothing but meat, fish, eggs,
> cheese, and
> cream for thirty-five days.  They had a low carbohydrate intake--less than
> 20
> grams a day--but it didn't matter.  Their blood cholesterol levels still
> went
> up, from 159 to 208 on average in just thirty-five days.  This study and
> others
> prove beyond a doubt that diets high in saturated fats--no matter how low
> the
> carbohydrate content--will raise blood cholesterol levels when caloric
> intake
> levels are normal.

If these men ate their eggs cooked with the yolk hard then that alone might
account for the rise in cholesterol. A recent study found that when people
eat eggs with the yolk runny, their cholesterol goes DOWN.

Also, there is no proof that a cholesterol level of 208 in and of itself is
a health risk. Doctors think cholesterol is bad because an oxidized form of
it is found in artery plaques. Completely cooking egg yolks will oxidize the
cholesterol.

The medical community will conduct huge multi-year studies where they fallow
the lives of 100,000 nurses. They will look at diet, lifestyle and blood
tests and correlate these data with disease. They found that there is a
strong correlation between blood cholesterol level and incidence of heart
disease. We know that oxidized cholesterol gets incorporated into artery
plaque, but beyond that there is no proof that blood cholesterol levels
along lead to heart disease. The human body manufactures more cholesterol
than is consumed. The factors that determine how much cholesterol is
produced are far more likely to be important. It is entirely likely that
since cholesterol is a transport system, more is needed when you consume
more fat.

For a less conventional view on cholesterol, go to http://www.thincs.org

-Tad