Ep. #405: Dr. Spencer Nadolsky on How Not to Die of Heart Disease

If you’re over age 65, you’re more likely to die from heart disease than any other cause.

Why, though?

Is it due to stress? Over or under exercising? Eating too much fat, cholesterol, and junk food? A bit of each or something else altogether?

Scientists have been searching for answers to those questions for a long time now, but if there’s one culprit that has been fingered more than any other, it’s diet. For a couple decades now, we’ve been told by experts everywhere that saturated fat, cholesterol, and often just dietary fat in general increases our your risk of heart disease, full stop.

This idea has been further bolstered by the promotion of the food pyramid, which tells us to get most of our calories from whole grains like pasta, cereal, and bread, and as few calories as possible from added fats like oils, butter, lard, and others.

Is it really that simple, though? Is reducing our dietary fat intake really the best way to avoid heart disease?

Frankly, while I’ve read enough to know there are some major holes in the “less fat = less heart disease” hypothesis, I’m not an expert on the topic, so I invited my buddy Dr. Spencer Nadolsky on the show to break it down.

I caught him at a good time, too, because he’s currently studying for certification on this very topic and shares some great insights on the most current scientific understanding of how our diets actually affect our tickers.

6:16 - How was the food pyramid created?
8:30 - What are the different types of fats and how do they affect your cholesterol?
10:25 - Does eating cholesterol raise your cholesterol?
14:09 - If you usually eat no cholesterol and start eating cholesterol, will you have a jump in your blood cholesterol? Does that normalize over time?
15:49 - What’s the purpose of having two different types of lipoproteins?
17:46 - What does endogenous and exogenous mean?
18:58 - What is familial hypercholesterolemia?
21:03 - What does the research say about the Mediterranean diet?
23:00 - What kind of effect does the stearic acid in chocolate have on LDL?
25:46 - What foods should people limit their intake of?
27:42 - Have you seen doctors go to the dark side?
36:26 - At what number is our LDL cholesterol a risk of heart disease?
39:25 - How much red meat should we have?
43:07 - Any more advice you had on saturated fat?
43:42 - How many servings of butter should we have per day?
51:11 - Can eating poorly from a young age have irreversible damage to your body?
53:14 - Where can people find you and your work?

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