Inflammation, NOT Cholesterol is the Cause of Chronic Disease (including cardiovascular, kidney, cancer and others)

[sos007]

Here's a quote from a medical review journal which is available here: mdpi.com/2072-6643/10/5/604...

"Abstract: Since the Seven Countries Study, dietary cholesterol and the levels of serum cholesterol in relation to the development of chronic diseases have been somewhat demonised. However, the principles of the Mediterranean diet and relevant data linked to the examples of people living in the five blue zones demonstrate that the key to longevity and the prevention of chronic disease development is not the reduction of dietary or serum cholesterol but the control of systemic inflammation. In this review, we present all the relevant data that supports the view that it is inflammation induced by several factors, such as platelet-activating factor (PAF), that leads to the onset of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) rather than serum cholesterol. The key to reducing the incidence of CVD is to control the activities of PAF and other inflammatory mediators via diet, exercise, and healthy lifestyle choices. The relevant studies and data supporting these views are discussed in this review."

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Toward the end of this review we find this quote:

"Conclusions

In this review, we clarify the roles of risk factors, such as plasma cholesterol and the importance of causative agents for chronic diseases, namely chronic and unresolved inflammation and its manifestations.

Instead of cholesterol, targeting and treatment of inflammation will lead to lower side effects in chronic disorders.

The overall outcomes and the extensive paradigms of the beneficial effects of the Mediterranean diet against the inflammatory milieu, without any reported side effects so far, have radically shifted attention away from the lipid-centric hypotheses and the subsequent trends for targeting cholesterol towards more effective approaches against inflammation, which is the causative factors of chronic diseases."...

...."Implementation of healthy lifestyle choices based on appropriate dietary interventions and exercise have exhibited beneficial outcomes and health benefits, without noticeable side effects. Adoption of dietary patterns such as the Med-diet provides bioactive food microconstituents with pleiotropic beneficial effects that are not limited to decreasing co-absorption of cholesterol and increasing plasma HDL levels and functionality, but mainly by providing better stability against oxidation and inflammation."...

..."Nature has provided us with a wide range of dietary weapons, which, if appropriately combined in dietary patterns such as the Med-diet, can beneficially contribute to improving our quality of life, health, and life expectancy by equilibrating the inflammatory milieu to normal levels and thus preventively reducing the risk of inflammation-related chronic disorders. Let us not forget the words of Hippocrates of Kos (460-377 BC), who is universally recognised as the father of modern medicine: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”.

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The Mediterranean Diet is a plant-based regimen than includes regular consumption of fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, fish, olives, and limited amounts of animal products.

[Paul12]

If I have gum disease then my gums are inflamed. If I get an insect bite then my skin is inflamed. I suggest the inflammation could be the body’s response to bacteria - from various sources

[sos007 Ambassador in reply to Paul12]

Yes, you're right. Sugar and other simple carbohydrates attract bacteria.

Here's an interesting article on this subject:

"Consider the classic food-poisoning bacterium Listeria monocytogenes. Medzhitov’s team infected a bunch of mice with Listeria, and, predictably, the mice stopped eating. They eventually recovered. But when the researchers fed the mice the same food—force-feeding them, as they had no appetites—they died.

Why, exactly, would that happen? Was some specific element in the food keeping the infection alive?

To figure that out, the Yale team broke down the food by macronutrients (fats, lipids, and carbohydrates). And, indeed, it seemed that the mice could survive the illness when they were forcibly fed proteins or fats. What they couldn’t take was the sugar glucose.

(Glucose comes to us not just by way of what we traditionally think of as sugar, but from any starchy food like bagels or crackers where carbohydrate chains break down into glucose in our mouths and stomachs.)"

theatlantic.com/science/arc...