One Guy's Wellness Theory (Random Thoughts and Wild Conjecture)

It's a fact that, no matter how well we eat, no matter what our genetic inheritance is, no matter how much we exercise, we all will die.  As has been discussed here a lot of late, high blood cholesterol has been shown to be a pretty good indicator of heart disease.  But critics rightly point out that reducing cholesterol does not affect mortality.  Lower it and you'll just as quickly die from something else.

I know for a fact that my serious implementation of a paleo way of eating has improved my blood lipid profile almost miraculously.  Good news, right?  Well, maybe not, I've been thinking of late.  Now I've increased my cancer risk or risk of autoimmune disease (or risk of being hit by a bus on my way home tonight.)  If mortality's unaffected by a reduction in cholesterol, some other killer's got to take its place.  What's the use even trying?

The answer is at once complex and simple.  First, I simply FEEL better.  Not the kind of feel better that you get when you do something you don't want to do but know it's gotta be good for you.  I mean REALLY feel better. Gone are the apthous ulcers that used to plague me.  Gone are my debilitating allergies and aching joints.  Gone is my depression and ADD.  The list goes on and on.

Not that I've ever seen any evidence for it, but even if this diet were to cause me to die 20 years earlier, it would be worth it.  Longetivity isn't the end all.  Quality of life is.  (There are plenty of 97 year old mummies out there whose lives are miserable but who are kept on this earth by well meaning physicians).

So how do you answer the cholesterol vs. other causes of mortality paradox?  I believe the answer is this (here comes the wild conjecture!): Cholesterol is simply one shield the body uses to protect itself from foreign proteins and the cancer and autoimmune disease that they cause.  Yes, by eating a Standard American Diet the cholesterol shield eventually kills us (for instance, by restricting blood flow to the heart and causing a heart attack).  But if we didn't have the cholestol, we'd die from cancer or autoimmune disease.  But eat a paleo diet, our true diet and the diet for which we were designed, you get rid of both the cause of heart disease as well as cancer and autoimmune disease.

Does that mean we paleo folk live forever?  Dang!  There's a new paradox.  Well, whatever the case, I am happier and healthier than I've ever been.  And it will take an army of people to stop me from eating this way.
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