Nina Teicholz in her book The Big Fat Surprise. According to her, we have been approaching the very real problem of heart attack risk from the wrong angle for many years.

1. Nina Teicholz’ The Big Fat Surprise Denies Dietary
Cholesterol Danger

2. Cholesterol in our diet does not increase the
dangerous cholesterol that clogs our arteries and
exacerbates heart disease. So says Nina Teicholz in
her book The Big Fat Surprise. According to her, we
have been approaching the very real problem of
heart attack risk from the wrong angle for many
years.

3. Nina Teicholz first became curious about the ideas
that would appear in The Big Fat Surprise when she
began eating in a whole new way as a restaurant
critic sampling high fat, high cholesterol dishes
that chefs would send out for her. Before this, she
had been living the diet recommended by the
USDA, a low-fat diet that was also low in
cholesterol. After her inadvertent switch in diets,
she lost ten pounds and felt better than ever.

4. Her own health was again questioned when she
spoke to JuJu Chang on ABC’s about her book The
Big Fat Surprise. Nina Teicholz agreed to have her
cholesterol checked as part of the segment and
found she had great numbers. Since she follows
what her book states, eating a diet high in fat and
low in carbohydrates, this was good anecdotal
evidence that she is onto something.

5. In her study of past research, she saw other
evidence that dietary cholesterol did not cause
heart disease. One example was the work of A.
Gerald Shaper. Nina Teicholz discusses his findings
in The Big Fat Surprise. Shaper was a South African
doctor who studied the Samburu tribe of Uganda to
learn the effects of their diet on their health. A
Samburu man in his prime typically consumed two
to seven liters of milk per day, over a pound of
butterfat. When possible, he would also eat two to
four pounds of meat with his milk. Saturated fat
composed approximately 60 percent of the
Samburu men’s diets. Not only were the tribal men
healthy, they did not develop obesity or heart
disease as they aged despite their fatty diet.

6. This finding goes directly against the
recommendations that have been a part of
American life since the 1950s when Ancel Benjamin
Keys brought forward his diet-heart hypothesis that
linked saturated fats to heart disease. Even before
this, cholesterol was assumed to be a primary
factor in the development of heart disease since it
is a main component of atherosclerotic plaques,
the accumulations that can block blood flow to the
heart.

7. Actually, as Nina Teicholz explains in The Big Fat
Surprise, cholesterol is a necessary part of all body
tissues. It is the gatekeeper of the cell membranes,
plays a major role in sex cell function, and is found
in greatest concentration in the brain where it also
acts as an antioxidant.

8. But many were determined that dietary cholesterol
was the source of serum cholesterol, or cholesterol
in the bloodstream, and in turn the cause of heart
attacks. As early as the nineteenth century, this was
thought to be true. Specific children with
abnormally high serum cholesterol were found to
be at high risk of heart disease. One of the children
died of heart disease by the age of 11. By the 1940s,
a genetic cause was isolated as the culprit. Their
diet was not to blame at all. But this was one of the
clues that made people believe that dietary
cholesterol was dangerous.

9. The experiments of Nikolaj Anitschkow, a Russian
pathologist, seemed to support the theory at first
glance. In 1913, he reported that he had found that
by feeding rabbits large doses of cholesterol, he
could induce atherosclerotic-type lesions in them.
This appeared to confirm the connection between
dietary cholesterol and serum cholesterol.
However, rabbits are naturally vegetarians and
could not process cholesterol the way a carnivore
or an omnivore could. When the experiment was
repeated with dogs, the results did not support
those of the rabbits. The dogs did not show the
dramatic increase in serum cholesterol. Still, the
first results were touted as proof.

10. Ironically Keys, the proponent of the low-fat diet,
actually discredited the idea that cholesterol in
food had a dramatic effect on serum cholesterol. He
really wanted to believe that a connection existed
but found in studies with volunteers that no matter
how high an amount of cholesterol he fed them, the
effect on their bloodwork was minimal. Keys
determined by 1955 that no further study was
necessary to rule out a negative effect.

11. Ironically Keys, the proponent of the low-fat diet,
actually discredited the idea that cholesterol in
food had a dramatic effect on serum cholesterol.
He really wanted to believe that a connection
existed but found in studies with volunteers that
no matter how high an amount of cholesterol he
fed them, the effect on their bloodwork was
minimal. Keys determined by 1955 that no further
study was necessary to rule out a negative effect.

12. Studies would continue to support this finding
including George Mann’s observation of Masai in
Kenya. Like Shaper in Uganda, he found that the
Masai ate a diet of mainly milk and fatty meat with
the addition of blood in the dry season. He
specifically measured their heart health by EKG and
their cholesterol levels, finding their serum
cholesterol to be actually lower than normal.

13. When Nina Teicholz discussed her book The Big
Fat Surprise during her appearance on
Fox & Friends, she pointed out that cholesterol in
eggs does not translate into serum cholesterol, and
scientists have known that at least since the 1970s.

14. The governments of Great Britain and most nations
of Europe rescinded their advisories against dietary
cholesterol years ago. However, it wasn’t until fall
2014 that the U.S. committee that develops dietary
advice pulled back the restrictions here on foods
high in cholesterol, according to Nina Teicholz,
author of The Big Fat Surprise, in her
op-ed in The New York Times.

15. Earlier that year, an exhaustive examination of all
available information by scientists at Cambridge
and Harvard and published in the Annals of Internal
Medicine concluded that saturated fats do
moderately raise the “bad” LDL cholesterol, but
this does not, as far as the evidence showed, lead
to heart disease. Nina Teicholz, author of The Big
Fat Surprise, explored their findings in her
Wall Street Journal

16. By following the evidence, or sometimes the lack
thereof, Nina Teicholz concludes in The Big Fat
Surprise that saturated fats, cholesterol and all, are
not just safe to eat; they are actually good for you.

17. Thank You