The raison d'etre of this website is to provide you with hard scientific information which may help you make informed decisions in your quest for health (so far I have blogged concise summaries of over 1,500 scientific studies and have had three books published).

My research is mainly focused on the effects of cholesterol, saturated fat and statin drugs on health. If you know anyone who is worried about their cholesterol levels and heart disease, or has been told to take statin drugs you could send them a link to this website, and to my statin or cholesterol or heart disease books.

David Evans

Independent Health Researcher

Friday 11 March 2011

Low fat diets decrease the levels of beneficial HDL (good) cholesterol

Published in Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 1999 Apr;19(4):918-24.

Dietary restriction of saturated fat and cholesterol decreases HDL ApoA-I secretion.
VĂ©lez-Carrasco W, Lichtenstein AH, Welty FK, Li Z, Lamon-Fava S, Dolnikowski GG, Schaefer EJ.
Lipid Metabolism Laboratory, Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

This paper can be accessed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10195918
 
As a major component of the high-density lipoprotein complex (HDL"good cholesterol"), ApoA-I helps to clear cholesterol from arteries and gives protection from heart disease.
 
The study examined the mechanisms responsible for the decrease in HDL cholesterol levels after the consumption of a diet low in total fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol. Twenty-one subjects with aa average age of 58 years were placed on:
Diet (1) Higher fat (15% protein, 49% carbohydrate, 36% fat, and 150 mg/1000 kcals of cholesterol)
and then switched to:
Diet (2) An National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) Step 2 diet lower fat (15% protein, 60% carbohydrate, 25% fat, and 45 mg/1000 kcals of cholesterol).
 
The study found that compared with the high fat diet, consumption of the lower fat diet lowered beneficial HDL and apoA-I cholesterol levels by 15% and 12% respectively.
 
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