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Truth or fiction: Too much cholesterol in whole eggs

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Truth
37% 118 votes Total: 322 votes
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Fiction

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by RhinoRalph

Created on: January 18, 2010

It is not the cholesterol in the eggs or any food that really matters but the cholesterol that the liver is over producing and depositing in the blood. The liver is releasing the bad LDL (Low Density Lipoprotein) cholesterol in the blood. Between 75 and 80 percent of that cholesterol in the blood is coming from the liver. The rest is just dietary cholesterol from food.

What is really controlling the liver production of cholesterol and depositing it in the blood is the work of two hormones. These hormones are insulin and glucagon. We have probably heard and know what is insulin but glucagon might not sound familiar to us. Insulin is doing or suppose to be doing its normal and main job which is removing excess sugar from the blood. If insulin is of a good quality it will do its job with the required amount and will not provoke any unbalance in our bodies. But it happens sometimes and it is happening more often these modern days that the pancreas is releasing excess insulin in its attempt to control the sugar in the blood. The normal amount of insulin  required is not doing its job and the blood sugar in the blood is resisting to obey the commands of insulin. We are becoming insulin resistant.

Being insulin resistance is sending a message to the pancreas to release more insulin to accomplish the job. It might do the job finally but there is a price to pay for having that excess insulin running in the blood. Too much insulin is stimulating an enzyme called 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase. This co-enzyme controls how fast and how much cholesterol the liver will produce. The hormone glucagon inhibits  this co-enzyme slowing the production of cholesterol. No matter how much eggs we consume it won't fix our cholesterol problem if we are insulin resistant.

We become insulin resistant after many years abusing our pancreas with excess consumption of sugar and carbohydrates. When we finish eating a rich carbohydrate meal our pancreas start producing insulin to remove the excess sugar. But it hasn't probably finishing doing so when another load of sugar and carbohydrate is being delivered. The pancreas gets exhausted after so much abuse and the insulin created start to be of lower quality and is unable to remove all the excess sugar in the blood. It is here that another big dose of insulin comes and finally bring down the sugar but this time is too much and we experience hypoglycemia, low blood sugar with its undesirable symptoms which might include migraine headaches, blurred vision, fatigue and more hunger feelings.

The vicious cycle starts and over the years the insulin is not able to do the job at all and the sugar remains high all the time. Glucagon can't come to inhibit this HMG-CoA reductase because this hormone is release when there is enough protein eaten and not that much sugar and carbohydrates eaten. To much carbohydrates stimulate too much insulin production which compete against glucagon. Eggs are rich in protein, are low in fat (for those that think fat is bad)  and have 0 grams of sugar and carbohydrates.



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