Cholesterol and Longevity: LDL, Immunity and Healthy Aging

They found that some of the longest living humans had high ch- cholesterol levels.

Yeah. That's 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, of cholesterol.

It is a molecule of life,

and, and 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.

Um, 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 there'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, I think the 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 higher mortality, and in some studies may even be

linked to longer life.

Exactly.