CHOLESTEROL AND FAT IWith 12 billion dollars worth of cholesterol- lowering drugs sold annually, the average American has become a cholesterol-lowering drug addict without giving any thought to the potential negative side effects. Combined, these facts render America's best selling drug useless and in some cases deadly. (As well, it makes you wonder about the other, less popular drugs.) Here is an easier fat-like substance to track and regulate... Hydrogenated fat (or trans fatty acid) is easier to regulate because you should be ingesting NONE. Fat is highly prone to oxidize and spoil, and when food spoils, food manufacturers lose money. To prolong the time before fatty processed food spoils, food manufacturers found that adding hydrogenated fat in place of other, more healthy fats solved their problem, but at our expense. Hydrogenated fat is made by adding hydrogen to an unsaturated oil and heating to around 300 degrees Fahrenheit in the presence of a nickel catalyst. It solidifies as it cools and the resulting solid fat is less prone to becoming rancid. The margarine, chocolate, and non-dairy creamer industry cheered because this added to their bottom lines. Business grew! They were very happy until they grew older and their blood quit flowing! Our body temperature is 98 degrees Fahrenheit. We constantly eat things like margarine that have hydrogenated fat. Hydrogenated fat blocks the flow of blood in our arteries because some of it remains in a solid state within our bodies. (Melting point is 110 degrees). A misuse of fat appears in “muscle builder” diets, particularly with the use of steroids. Sterols are hormones that are a type of lipid (fats) and repair body tissues, in this case our muscles. That means that in order for a muscle to be repaired it must be damaged. So some body builders deliberately overexert their bodies by lifting weights that are too heavy, and then take sterols in the form of steroids to "repair" them. The injuries cause swelling and by taking steroids or other protein enhancer the muscle is repaired, albeit bigger, but at the expense of the normal functioning of the circulatory, nerve, lymphatic, and digestive systems that service the muscle. The FDA requires labeling on food products, which is our best way to become informed the food content we put into our bodies. The only problem here is not all FDA approved food is good for us. Positive reviews on negative foods frequently pop up possibly because of lobbying and profiteering. Although this labeling and FDA approving system isn’t perfect, it is better to have something questionable, than nothing at all. If there is a product you question, research and study the pros and cons before ingestion! That’s your job for your health’s sake. Given that the labels of the more prominent products have categories of "total fat" and "polyunsaturated fats," subtracting the "poly" from the "total" at least will give you the amounts of 2 fats (saturated and trans) that you do not want. This is at least a rudimentary start at attempting to regulate your diet. If eating saturated fat caused heart disease and weight gain, then eliminating those fats should have resulted in a decline in heart disease and an increase in weight loss. But look around you. That’s not what happened! While we Americans have been dutifully eliminating fat from our diet by eating low-fat foods and avoiding saturated fats found in tropical oils, butter, and red meats, obesity rates and the overall incidence of heart disease have continued to climb. The most important part of our body, our nerves and brain are made of 60% FAT. Just think, if fat is needed to build a health brain, then why we are not eating it? Is the declining of academic achievement at schools a result of a fat free diet? Depression in the land of plenty has reached epidemic proportion. We are in need of nerve food FAT and not pills. One 2003 study, conducted by Harvard School of Public Health and presented to the Association for the Study of Obesity, was conducted but not published. Twenty-one overweight volunteers were divided into 3 groups. All food was prepared for the volunteers, so the researchers knew exactly what they were eating. Those eating the high-fat diet lost more weight than those eating high-carb, even though calorie intake was the same. In fact, those eating a high-fat diet containing 300 more calories per day than the high-carb group lost more weight.