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Summary
On episode 18 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan sits down with Jimmy Moore, who lost 180 pounds in 2004, came off medication for high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and respiratory problems, and went on to host the Livin’ La Vida Low Carb Show and write Cholesterol Clarity, Keto Clarity, and The Ketogenic Cookbook. This is part one of a three-part series.
Jimmy argues the standard cholesterol story is backwards: total cholesterol is a poor predictor of heart disease risk, the body makes more cholesterol than most people eat, and the real driver behind cardiovascular problems is inflammation, not a high number on a lipid panel.
He and Allan also get into why doctors keep prescribing statins anyway, the standard-of-care liability that boxes physicians in, and the muscle and joint damage both men experienced firsthand on Lipitor and Crestor.
Links
- https://livinlavidalowcarb.com
Key Takeaways
- High cholesterol is not, by itself, a disease. Jimmy says he used to believe it was, but it is an essential substance the body cannot function without, and treating the number alone as the enemy misses the point.
- Your body makes more cholesterol than you eat. Cutting cholesterol-rich foods like eggs prompts the liver to produce more to maintain equilibrium, so dietary restriction rarely moves the number much.
- Total cholesterol is a flawed number made of three weak pieces. It includes HDL, which you actually want higher, a merely estimated LDL-C figure calculated with the Friedewald equation, and it leaves out triglycerides entirely, arguably the most dangerous marker on the panel.
- Three out of four people hospitalized for a cardiovascular event had normal cholesterol under 200. Jimmy cites this statistic from Cholesterol Clarity as evidence that a cholesterol number under 200 does not mean someone is safe from heart disease.
- The 200 normal threshold does not match healthy traditional populations. Women in cultures with no heart disease at all had average total cholesterol around 300, roughly 50 percent above the medical cutoff.
- Inflammation, not cholesterol, is the marker worth tracking. Jimmy recommends asking a doctor for HS-CRP (high sensitivity C-reactive protein), aiming for under 2.0 and optimally under 1.0, plus homocysteine as a parallel inflammation marker.
- Doctors are boxed in by a legal standard of care that pushes statins above 200. A physician who skips the statin and something goes wrong can be sued for malpractice, which is why even skeptical doctors often prescribe anyway.
- Statins can cause real physical damage. Allan describes his legs collapsing mid-walk with his daughter on a statin, and Jimmy describes a joint injury, a thumb bent backward grabbing a rebound, tied to the same class of drug.
- Triglycerides under 100, and especially under 70, signal strong metabolic health. Jimmy says this marker gets almost no attention from doctors even though it is far more informative than total cholesterol.
“The big take-home message about cholesterol is it’s not about cholesterol. It’s about the inflammation.”
Jimmy Moore
Another Episode You May Enjoy
Episode 53 – How to Not Die of Heart Disease – Dr. Michael Greger