Thursday, May 15, 2014

The Redemption of Cholesterol—How It Supports Your Health

 

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Download Interview Transcript


Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death, and cholesterol is frequently given the blame. But is it justified?
Over the past 60 years, research has repeatedly demonstrated that there's NO correlation between high cholesterol and plaque formation that leads to heart disease. Despite that, the saturated fat/cholesterol myth has persisted.
After researching the science of lipids, cholesterol, heart disease, and nutrition for nearly eight decades, Dr. Fred Kummerow—now nearly 100 years old—has a thing or two to say about the matter. In fact, he was the first researcher to identifywhich fat really causes the clogged arteries conventionally blamed on saturated fats.
Since the late '70s, he's also studied the imbalance of nutrients in the American diet that lead to obesity. His new book, Cholesterol Is Not the Culprit, focuses on the basic chemistry of food, how your body works, and how food fits into the equation.
Dr. Kummerow's work shows that it's not cholesterol that causes heart disease—it's quite safe to eat eggs, for example—rather it's the trans fats that are to blame. He was one of the first to make this association, and the first to publish a scientific article on it, all the way back in 1957.
"That was the first article that showed that trans fatty acids, which are present in hydrogenated fats, caused heart disease," he says.

Why FDA Finally Took a Stand Against Trans Fats

Consumption of trans fat, which for decades was touted as a healthier alternative to saturated animal fat, radically increased in the mid-1950s. 

And according to Dr. Kummerow, rates of sudden death from heart disease have faithfully risen right along with trans fat consumption. Fortunately, the science showing trans fats to be FAR more harmful than saturated fat is finally starting to get the recognition it deserves.
Not surprisingly, considering his long history in this field, Dr. Kummerow may have played an instrumental role in getting the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to finally address this health hazard. In 2009, Dr. Kummerow filed a citizen petition with the FDA calling for a ban on synthetic trans fats. In the petition, he noted that:
"Trans fat leads to the reduction of prostacyclin that is needed to prevent blood clots in the arteries. A blood clot in any of the coronary arteries can result in sudden death.”
The FDA is required to respond to such petitions within 180 days, but nearly four years later, it still had not responded. So, last year he filed a lawsuit against the agency.1 Interestingly enough, it wasn't long thereafter that the FDA announced it was considering removing partially hydrogenated oils—the primary source of trans fats—from the list of "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS) ingredients.
The agency gave the industry a total of 120 days to comment on the proposal. The FDA noted that there are 30,000 items in the American diet that contain trans fats. That should give you an indication of just how prevalent these dangerous fats are!
Basically, if you eat processed foods, you're likely eating trans fats. Many products that claim to be "zero trans fat" simply have portion sizes that are so ridiculously small that the trans fat falls below the permissible limits.

Trans Fats 101

Structurally, trans fats are synthetic fatty acids. Fourteen of them are produced during the hydrogenation process. (They are not present in either animal or vegetable fats.) As explained by Dr. Kummerow, trans fats prevent the synthesis of prostacyclin,2 which is necessary to keep your blood flowing.
When your arteries cannot produce prostacyclin, blood clots form, and you may succumb to sudden death. Avoiding trans fat is therefore imperative for cardiovascular health. Vaccenic acid, found in cow’s milk, while a naturally-occurring trans fat, has an entirely different composition and does not cause the adverse health effects associated with hydrogenated oils.
"It's a matter of complex chemistry that makes a difference," Dr. Kummerow says. "The Food and Drug Administration has for years confused those two fatty acids. One causes no problem; the other one does."

Trans Fat and Oxidized Cholesterol Are Responsible for Heart Disease

Dr. Kummerow recently published a paper3 showing that there are two lipids (fats) in our diet responsible for the formation of heart disease. The first is trans fat found in partially hydrogenated oil.
The other one is oxidized cholesterol, formed when cholesterol  is heated. The primary source of the latter is fried foods. Powdered egg yolk is another example of a food where heating has damaged the fat to the point of creating harmful oxidized cholesterol. Oxidized cholesterol (again, not dietary cholesterol in and of itself) causes increased thromboxane formation—a factor that clots your blood.
"You have prostacyclin that keeps your blood flowing, and thromboxane that clots your blood. You have to be very careful about the ratio, the amount of each in the blood. That's the simple explanation [for what causes heart disease],"DrKummerow says. "In 2011, 325,000 people died from sudden death... and we're going to keep on seeing people die of sudden death [unless trans fats are removed entirely from the diet].
In 1958, I showed that if I fed a rat trans fat and then took it out of the diet, in a month, the trans fat is... metabolized out. There's no more trans fat in the body. If today the FDA decided that no more trans fat should be in the diet, next month, people who have been eating this fat will have lost the trans fat. It would have been metabolized. There would be – next year and the year after – less death from sudden deaths."

Avoiding Processed Food Is the Easiest Way to Protect Your Heart

The fact that your body can eliminate trans fats in about a month is encouraging. The tragic reality, of course, is that 95 percent of the food that most Americans eat is processed—and processed food is where all this trans fat lies. The key message here is that you don't have to wait for the FDA to make a ruling on trans fat. You can avoid trans fats by eliminating all processed foods, which would also include most restaurant food. If you can eliminate that from your diet, and replace it with fresh, locally grown vegetables, healthy fats, and animal proteins in appropriate amounts, you're far less likely to end up with heart disease.
Balancing your omega-3 to omega-6 ratio is also key for heart health, as these fatty acids help build the cells in your arteries that make the prostacyclin that keeps your blood flowing smoothly. Omega-3 deficiency can cause or contribute to very serious health problems, both mental and physical, and may be a significant underlying factor of up to 96,000 premature deaths each year. For more information about omega-3s and the best sources of this fat, please review this previous article. Besides animal-based omega-3 fats, other sources of healthful fats to add to your diet include:
AvocadosButter made from raw grass-fed organic milkRaw dairyOrganic pastured egg yolks
Coconuts and coconut oilUnheated organic nut oilsRaw nuts, such as almonds, pecans, macadamia, and seedsGrass-fed meats

How to Avoid Arterial Calcification

You also need the appropriate ratios of calcium, magnesium, sodium, and potassium, and all of these are generally abundant in a whole food diet. The following tidbit will give you an idea of how these nutrients come into play: by analyzing the composition of veins, Dr. Kummerow showed that people undergoing a heart bypass typically have 40 to 60 percent of something called sphingomyelin in their arteries. Sphingomyelin is a part of five phospholipids that surround the arterial cell to protect it. The amount of sphingomyelin changes over time, and is largely dependent on your diet. Oxidized fats promote the creation of sphingomyelin.
"When half the artery was now sphingomyelin, the salt in the blood causes it to have a negative charge; the calcium in the arteries has a positive charge. The calcium then adheres to the wall of the artery and gradually causes the coronary artery to become calcified," he explains.
"It's well-known now that calcification is involved in [heart disease], to the point where the blood can no longer flow through that coronary artery. The heart doesn't get the blood supply it needs, and it begins to ache. Of course, then you go to a physician, and get saved through a coronary bypass operation. There are 300,000 of them now a year in this country. So, it's important to keep your artery free of calcification. You can do that by not eating oxidized fats. That's what causes that.
Of course, the other thing I mentioned is that if you don't eat trans fats, you will not interfere with the flow of your blood. The trans fats will have no influence because if you don't eat them, they're not going to be there. That's the other reason for heart disease. If you don't eat trans fat and the oxidized fat, you won't have heart disease."

Healthy Advice from a Scientist Who's Nearly 100 Years Old

Dr. Kummerow was largely responsible for finding the association of pellagra and niacin deficiency, and the first researcher to identify the fact that trans fat was a major cause of heart disease. As he nears the age of 100, he's still working; still researching, and his brain is as sharp as ever. If nothing else, he's a true testament to what "right living" can do for you!
"I can tell you what I think: you have to have a healthy diet," he says. "You have to exercise every day. I used to go swimming at noon, have my lunch along, and eat it in my laboratory. I always went swimming at least a half hour. I bicycled, too. I bicycled to work from my house, which was a mile away from my lab, every day."
Vitamins K2 and D are also important players. Some researchers, like Dr. Stephanie Seneff, believe optimizing your vitamin D levels through regular sun exposure, opposed to taking an oral supplement, may be key to optimizing your heart health. Recent research published in the journal Menopause45 also appears to offer support for Dr. Seneff's theories on the cholesterol-vitamin D link. 

Dr. Kummerow notes there is research showing that excessive amounts of vitamin D through supplementation actually promotes arterial calcification. But it's important to distinguish between vitamin D created by your body in response to sun exposure, and vitamin D taken in pill form. For example, while it's extremely difficult to reach excessive vitamin D levels (thereby causing arterial calcification) through sun exposure, vitamin K2 is critical for avoiding such results when you take high amounts of supplemental vitamin D.
I personally have not taken oral vitamin D in over four years. I get all of my vitamin D from exposure to the sun. The benefit of doing it this way is that your body has a built-in biofeedback mechanism that regulates the amounts of vitamin D that is made. This ensures you'll have just the right amount your body needs.
Now, when you take oral vitamin D, you increase your need for vitamin K2. The biological role of vitamin K2 is to help move calcium into the proper areas in your body, such as your bones and teeth. It also helps remove calcium from areas where it shouldn't be, such as in your arteries and soft tissues. Symptoms of vitamin D toxicity are actually produced by vitamin K2 deficiency, including the inappropriate calcification that can lead to hardening of your arteries.

Sugar—Another Primary Driver of Heart Disease

While not discussed in this interview, I want to remind you that sugar is another primary dietary culprit in the development of heart disease. To protect your heart health, you need to address your insulin and leptin resistance, which is the result of eating a diet too high in sugars and grains. To safely and effectively reverse insulin and leptin resistance, thereby lowering your heart disease risk, you need to:
  1. Avoid sugar, processed fructose, and grains if you are insulin and leptin resistant. This effectively means you must avoid most processed foods
  2. Eat a healthful diet of whole foods, ideally organic, and replace the grain carbs with:
    • Large amounts of vegetables
    • Low-to-moderate amount of high-quality protein (think organically raised, pastured animals)
    • As much high-quality healthful fat as you want (saturated and monounsaturated from animal and tropical oil sources). Most people actually need upwards of 50-85 percent fats in their diet for optimal health—a far cry from the 10 percent currently recommended.

More Information

While there are dozens of books on cholesterol out there, Cholesterol Is Not the Culprit was written by the person who first figured out the true foundational causes of heart disease, namely trans fat, and oxidized cholesterol from fried foods (fats damaged by heating). And he did it 57 years ago! If you have any interest in learning more about the ins and outs of cholesterol, I strongly encourage you to get Dr. Kummerow's book. It's available on Amazon, and is a really great read.
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Gloucester’s Sensibility Speed Bump (The uncensored version)

Gloucester CountyVirginia’s Board of Supervisors seems to be headed in a more sensible direction than it has been for many years.  If this governing body continues to make decisions on the side of what makes sense things will become better for Gloucester as a whole. However, there is one significant area where the governing body has little or no ability to apply sensibility or even successfully encourage it at this point.  That area is the Gloucester County public education system. 
 
The School Board is also a governing body whose primary function is to oversee the application and function of an effective public education system.  Many sensible thinkers believe the fateful aspects of Gloucester’s public education system stem primarily from the fact that Dr. Howard Benjamin (Ben) Kiser was hired and allowed to manipulate the School Board into a tool to facilitate his own aspirations, desires and gains.
 
The Kiser’s, record in Gloucester includes; ignoring negative disciplinary trends within the school system; failing to ensure the effective administration of mathematics at Gloucester’s only public high school; creating an atmosphere of un-trust and low morale among Gloucester’s teaching staff; turning Gloucester’s public school system and School Board into political tools; creating animosity and dysfunction between the Board of Supervisors and the School Board; disregarding input from the Gloucester Community after a tornado partially destroyed Page Middle School; allowing the unnecessary and unwarranted demolition of needed and usable infrastructure; excessive and disproportionate spending; creating biased and non-transparent citizen committees; sending Freedom of Information Act and Records Retention Act protected information to more than one of his private email accounts and failing to provide such emails in response to FOIA requests; manipulating Commonwealth of Virginia and Gloucester County Professional Service procurement procedures; placing his personal gain and ambitions above administering a quality public education program; failing to examine and correct significantly flawed accountability procedures intended to protect approximately 1.4 million dollars annually in school activities funds; and the list goes on and on. 
 
Now the rest of the Commonwealth of Virginia will have the opportunity to witness the workings of a Virginia K-12 public education administration failure as The Kiser now becomes Director of the Virginia Association of School Superintendents.  This non-governmental position will enhance his ability to distort the sensible mind sets of public school Superintendents in every district throughout the Commonwealth. Well done Dr. Howard Benjamin (Ben) Kiser.  Well done.  As a member of the sensible thinking Gloucester Community I thank you for the excessive debt, the unfocused School Board, the disruptive school environments, the inadequate teaching at Gloucester High School and all of the other many wonderful knife in the back gifts you are leaving Gloucester County as you continue your journey to self gratification utopia.
 
Kenneth E. Hogge, Sr.

Our Note:
We could not have said it better ourselves.
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Gloucester, VA County Employees Continue To Shop On Your Tax Dollars


Monday, May 12th, 2014, we saw this county government vehicle pull into the parking lot and the employee go into Dollar General at about 10:30 AM.  The employee was in the store for about 15 minutes.  Why are county employees going shopping when they are supposed to be working and again as we continue to point out, in violation of county employment policies no less.  If they had to buy supplies, for one, this is not the way the county should be spending money, they have catalogs where they can order whatever goods they need and spend less money and pay no taxes than buying from national retailers.  Which also brings up the next question, if they are buying supplies in this way, are they paying taxes using money we paid in taxes for them to waste like this adding extra burdens on us all?

  If this was personal shopping, why are we paying them to shop and drive all over the county to do so?  It does not look like this issue will ever be solved.  The county government thinks your pockets are so deep that they can spend all your money any way they see fit?  This after the Board of Supervisors spent a great deal of energy holding the line to prevent taxes from going up?  Something has to give and it may just be your wallet in the next round come 2015.

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Do Cell Phones Cause Cancer? And Other Issues As Well?

English: A cell phone tower in Palatine, Illin...
English: A cell phone tower in Palatine, Illinois, USA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)



We recently ran across this video and thought it had some interesting points that need some investigation and more research.  At present, the planet now has over 5 million cell phone towers emitting microwave radiation?  Over 4 billion people are now using cell phones on a regular basis?  About 70% of the world's honey bee population has now vanished and may be related to the cell phone towers?  Brain and other forms of cancer are being traced back to cell phone use?

  According to the documents you get with your cell phone, there is plenty of reason to believe that cell phone use offers the very real potential for serious health concerns.

http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2007/aug2007_report_cellphone_radiation_01.htm

The above is from the Life Extension Foundation regarding the serious threat from cell phone use due to electromagnetic field radiation.  According to the site, in 2007 there were over 2 billion cell phone users at that time.  So the amount of people with cell phones has doubled.

http://www.rense.com/general56/rad.htm

Another link showing the very real dangers of RF even if you do not have or use cell phones.  You are still at risk for very dangerous health problems even though you do not own or use a cell phone.

On the other side, laptops with the WiFi turned on offers potential concerns, Wifi itself also offers potential concerns as well as microwave oven use in your own home.  The question to ask is if one in 3 people on average are now developing cancer according to a video we posted yesterday, where are all of these cases coming from?  What have been the changes in society that would be contributing to these massive increases?  Also, why isn't there more alarm for these health issues?  And are there ways to protect yourself from EFR contamination?




Now this is where the story becomes even more bizarre.  The way that many people recommend that you protect yourself from all of the ERF's is by using orgone energy.  The above video explains what orgone is.  There is a lot of new companies that have sprung up whom are creating some wonderful works of art and calling it orgone energy.  Does it work?




Here is a video we found where the person who sells orgone sculptures claim it works.  I was not convinced by this video though.  Something just did not feel right about the information or testing he claimed to be doing.

The more I dig into the orgone protection, the more the BS meter keeps going up.  It's not to say that it does not work, it requires more research on our part.  If we come up with some sound reasons for these sculptures other than nice art we will let you know.
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Gloucester, VA Board of Supervisors Meeting, May, 2014 with Notes




Open Letter to the Citizens of Gloucester County Virginia


What an interesting meeting

The Virginia Constitution was written for us to limit the government intrusion into our lives.  Have you ever read the Constitution of the United States?  How about the Constitution of Virginia?

Mr. Hodges:  Thank you for continuing to support smaller government and local government and taking time to update us on developments in Richmond.  Just say no to the Governor’s proposal to increase Medicare.  It looks good short term but we do not need any more unfunded mandates from DC.

Marinas Zoning Ordinance:  Makes sense make it consistent for everyone and reduce government oversight.

17 Corridor Overlay:  A good program we can do without.  There is too much government in our business.  The purpose was to stop business from coming to Gloucester and it worked well.  Mr. Don Mitchell how can we expect our BoS to be consistent when we present a position one way in eliminating ordinances and then use an opposite argument when it affects us personally?  I do not care what position you take but please be consistent.  I am for less government in our business and personal lives (“For the Common Good. “) so we can grow and prosper that way the government gets more without have to raise the percent of income it takes.  I have firsthand knowledge of work performed on 17 and what it cost the person to do the work. Based on this work it encouraged business neighbors to clean up and improve their properties also and that helped their businesses.  I understand the cost and do not have a problem with getting rid of the excess rules.  What I have a problem with is the County made upgrades to their property across from Providence Road after the 17 Corridor rules were in place and did not come into compliance.  It was too expensive?  How about consistency?  Why does PHA to this day not meet the 17 Corridor Rules with all the changes made to their new building?  How can we expect new businesses to come to the county and build to County standards if we do not require existing businesses to comply with the same rules?  Was there a pay off?  Good old boy network? Why are there different rules depending on who you know?  Let’s get the rules consistent!

5 yr capital improvement plan Ms. Champion:  We do not have a 5 yr plan? No wonder the county is so messed up.  We react from one situation to the next.  A 5 year plan allows you how to recognize what is important and not be jumping all over the board.  If you had a good 5 year plan you would be able to tell a judge we would love to build a jail to keep you in, I mean a wall around the parking lot, but we would not do maintenance to the roof of the court house.  Mr. Chriscoe do you plan to fail in your private life as well as your public life?  Failure to plan is planning to fail!  Are you so afraid of change that you are willing to continue to shortchange the county and not give it the best we can afford?  No business or government in this day of tight funding can afford not to plan wisely. And that is what you are implying when you are against planning.  Ms. Champion what a good job you did in educating the board and coming forward with this plan most saw it as the way to go.  The plan will allow you to get to action not reaction. We do not need to continue to jump from one hole in the dike to the next, which is what we are doing now.  What Ms. Champion proposes still needs work but it is going in the right direction.

Mr. Wilmot you have been doing a good job representing the county this year keep it up.
Mr. Bazzani we missed you during the meeting.
Mr. Hutson that is the most positive I have seen you for a complete meeting.
Mr. Meyer keep on doing what you promised us during the election.
Dr. Orth you are showing us you are a capable leader that is trying to do what is right for the county.
Mr. James keep looking out for the best interest of the county.
Mr. Winebarger you do not say a lot, which is ok, but you keep everyone on their toes when you do speak.  On behalf of Mr. Thompson thanks for the compliment and verification what we are doing is working.
Mr. Chiscoe maybe you should look for a non elected position that does not require planning?

I am not a lawyer and cannot give legal advice.  Our founding fathers used common sense and Christian scripture when establishing our founding documents. 

“For the Common Good. “

Sincerely,
Alexander James Jay

P.S.  "In the next place, the state governments are, by the very theory of the constitution, essential constituent parts of the general government. They can exist without the latter, but the latter cannot exist without them." --Joseph Story Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833


"If it were to be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws -- the first growing out of the last. ... A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government." --Alexander Hamilton, Essay in the American Daily Advertiser, 1794
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