Cholesterol's Role in Longevity and Health

They found that some of the longest living

humans had high cholesterol levels. Yes, right That's what the Sweden study found.

For example, the paper just published a year or so ago What were some of

the most consistent themes they had good glucose control and high cholesterol?

I'm a great defender of Cholesterol it is a molecule of life

And it's so many

so much depends on it mitochondria For example

mitochondria have to have a cholesterol molecule in them in order

to work Like the very powerhouse of the cell and the more you lower

cholesterol through say drug interventions the more you compromise the mitochondria

The sex hormones

all sex hormones are built on cholesterol It's no surprise if someone takes

a cholesterol lowering medication their sex hormones go down This is why some men

experience such terrible loss

of libido Because he's becoming low testosterone because of the war on cholesterol,

but it's good and bad cholesterol, right? Well, that's as the story goes.

Yes, people will say LDL cholesterol is the bad cholesterol and

Yet that gets included in these studies of longevity So I think that good and bad

aspect of it is not entirely fair or accurate We

need LDL and LDL is just as much a component

of the immune system LDL actually helps the body fight infections.

So it's also an unsung hero of immunity There is research suggesting that in

very old age high cholesterol levels do

not always correlate with high immortality And in some studies may even be

linked to longer life