Ray Peat on cholesterol

"Several people in the 1930s and *40s showed that hypothyroidism caused atherosclerosis, and that thyroid supplementation corrected it. In people whose thyroid gland was removed, their serum cholesterol increased as their rate of metabolism slowed, and when they were given desiccated thyroid to normalize their metabolic rate, their serum cholesterol was immediately correspondingly normalized."

- September 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"the rising cholesterol had a defensive function. For example, when the amount of cholesterol flowing into an ovarian artery was increased, the amount of progesterone flowing out of an ovarian vein increased proportionally, as the raw material was converted to the product."

- September 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"In the 1960s, the lipid bilayer cytoplasmic membrane was a craze, and the physical properties of cholesterol and saturated fatty acids were popularly used to explain everything in terms of membrane fluidity. (Between January, 1964 and the present, PubMed lists more than 37,000 entries for lipid bilayer.)"

- September 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The actual physical stiffness of whole cells and their surroundings is very important. For example excitotoxicity (Fang, et al., 2014), and other forms of energy depletion can stiffen cells, and prolonged energy depletion and inflammation lead to degenerative changes—tissue calcification, fibrosis, and invasive, disorganized cell movement, for example. These stress related stiffenings of the cell substance and matrix have nothing directly to do with the local quantity of cholesterol."

- September 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"When the cholesterol content of red blood cells is experimentally lowered, they become more rigid, and restoring the normal amount of cholesterol restores their flexibility"

- September 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"In the body, the adipose tissues with a high fat content maintain a much lower cholesterol content than the muscle tissues. This is partly because muscles produce more cholesterol than fat tissue does, but also because the structural proteins of cells have a high affinity for cholesterol. In effect, fat and proteins are mutually soluble."

- September 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"I think it’s correct to think of protoplasm as a complex kind of solution of proteins, water, cholesterol and other lipids, nucleic acids, ATP, and smaller amounts of other substances, with a viscosity that varies as small changes of solutes modify the balance of cohesive forces. Because of its molecular shape and hydrophobicity, cholesterol acts as both a lubricant and a stabilizer of this complex system. It decreases cell rigidity by increasing protein mobility"

- September 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The fact that cholesterol strengthens cells, keeping them from disintegrating under stress, obviously has nothing to do with a lipid bilayer membrane. That membrane doctrine has made it seem paradoxical that the loss of cholesterol should make cells stiffer, while weakening them. Gilbert Ling has, for 65 years, pointed out the numerous paradoxes confronted by the advocates of the lipid boundary membrane, but the membrane doctrine continues to govern"

- September 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"About 40 years ago, someone noticed that the commercial cholesterol used for research was contaminated by oxidation, and that pure cholesterol didn’t produce the same toxic effects."

- September 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"the foam cells found in atherosclerosis plaques contain . ..cholesterol esters, principally cholesteryl eicosapentaenoate, cholesteryl docosahexaenoate, cholesteryl arachidonate, cholesteryl linoleate and cholesteryl oleate. The oxidation of these fatty acids produces acrolein and related compounds which block the ability of cells to regulate cholesterol"

- September 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Combined with the unstable polyunsaturated fats, cholesterol can’t perform its normal functions. The unstable polyunsaturated fats inactivate the corrective (ABCA) protein that removes the damaged form of cholesterol"

- September 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The healthy young brain contains a very large amount of cholesterol, almost all in the pure, non-esterified or free form—more than 99.5%, according to Orth and Bellosta (2012, citing Bjorkhem and Meaney, 2004). The aging, degenerating brain contains an increasing amount of esterified cholesterol,"

- September 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"While there is still great reluctance to acknowledge the carcinogenic nature of PUFA, results such as this have motivated the drug industry to consider using their ACAT inhibitors (blocking the attachment of PUFA to cholesterol) for treating cancer."

- September 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The polyunsaturated fatty acids, by being combined with the normally protective cholesterol, convert it into a sort of toxin, a disorganizing factor, leading to neurodegeneration, hardening of the arteries, cataracts, chronic kidney disease, and cancer."

- September 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"When the diet lacks the polyunsaturated fatty acids, the liver synthesizes saturated fatty acids, and exports its cholesterol mainly in combination with palmitate, which doesn’t promote lipid peroxidation, or in the non-esterified free form."

- September 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"A lifetime of accumulating PUFA progressively degrades the liver’s protective functions, but those functions can gradually be restored by providing carbohydrates and saturated fats without the polyunsaturated fats, along with some of the factors that have been depleted along with free cholesterol, especially pregnenolone and progesterone."

- September 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Progesterone is the precursor (following acetate and cholesterol) for all of the other steroid hormones, so it can be used in men. It (or its precursor, pregnenolone) has been used for prostatitis, arthritis, and infertility in men. Large amounts, though, would probably suppress LH, and lower testosterone synthesis, but a smaller amount (especially in old men) seems to increase sperm count and motility. In male and female athletes who become infertile, it would seem to be the appropriate therapy, generally in combination with thyroid."

- Nutrition For Women

"Since a healthy liver will produce cholesterol to make up for what is lacking in the diet, avoiding high cholesterol foods wont necessarily lower blood cholesterol."

- Nutrition For Women

"Vitamin C is now known to lower blood cholesterol. Eggs are rich in cholesterol, but they also contain lecithin, which appears to make the cholesterol useful, or at least less harmful. Niacin and vitamin E also help to regulate cholesterol. High insulin levels, caused by eating sugar, seem to be important in allowing cholesterol to damage the blood vessels."

- Nutrition For Women

"High cholesterol usually indicates low thyroid function. When thyroid is low, cholesterol isnt converted efficiently into progesterone. The real cause of heart attacks seems to be hypothyroidism and its effects, including loss of magnesium."

- Nutrition For Women

"Numerous studies have found that a high magnesium intake is associated with low blood cholesterol levels. Magnesium also opposes clot formation and vascular spasm, which can be promoted by an excess of calcium."

- Nutrition For Women

"Eggs, for several reasons might actively protect against the formation of cholesterol deposits. One of the men who discovered insulin, Best, later showed that choline (a component of lecithin) can prevent fatty degeneration of the liver."

- Nutrition For Women

"Animal studies show that margarine causes more circulatory disease than does butter or cholesterol"

- Nutrition For Women

"In the 1930s, it was known that thyroid hormone increases the metabolic rate and raises the body temperature. Since serum cholesterol decreased in proportion to the increase of metabolic rate by thyroid supplementation, it was suggested that measuring cholesterol could be used to diagnose hypothyroidism."

- November 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"It has been known for several decades that the production of progesterone and DHEA decreases steadily with aging, and in recent years it has been noticed that when aged skin is exposed to sunlight it produces only half as much vitamin D as young skin does. Old skin has about half as much cholesterol as young skin, so it isn’t surprising that those substances derived from it are reduced."

- November 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The characteristic opacity of aged skin is the result of an accumulation of layers of dead cells on the surface. While the vital underlying skin cells contain much less cholesterol than normal, the inert cells contain an increased amount of cholesterol sulfate. When the skin’s free cholesterol content is increased experimentally, the skin regains its ability to shed the dead superficial cells. ‘When it’s lowered experimentally, as with a statin, the skin takes on the structure and appearance of old skin. Aging seems to be a state of cholesterol starvation."

- November 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Low serum cholesterol has been associated with depression, suicide, violence, and increased cancer mortality. Since statins enter the brain, and inhibit the synthesis of cholesterol there, decreased mitochondrial function is undoubtedly a factor in the mental side effects that they can produce."

- November 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Cholesterol’s functions are similar in many ways to those of progesterone. In the pregnant uterus, for example, progesterone’s relaxing function is backed up by cholesterol (Smith, et al., 2005). In the brain, excitation of nerves by glutamic acid is controlled by the uptake protein which binds this transmitter, and this protein’s function depends on cholesterol; reduction of cholesterol prolongs nerve excitation"

- November 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Within the cell nucleus, there is a highly organized substance, the nuclear matrix, that interacts closely with the rest of the cytoskeleton, permitting DNA to be expressed according to the cell’s need as it responds to its environment. Cholesterol and other lipids are essential for the specific highly organized interactions between DNA and the rest of the cell"

- November 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Cholesterol is involved in the maintenance of stem cells and the control of their maturation into functioning cells. A cholesterol chelator, cyclodextrin, which interferes with cellular cholesterol, causes cardiac stem cells to mature into functioning heart muscle cells: B-CD performed its function by increasing the free intracellular cholesterol"

- November 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Excitatory transmission appears to contribute to the loss of cholesterol in the brain during aging; the amount of cholesterol in synapses decreases with aging (Sodero, et al., 2011). Although excitatory (glutamatergic) stimulation lowers brain cholesterol, environmental enrichment (meaningful experience) increases it (Levi, et al., 2005), and also reverses the age-related decline in the neurosteroids derived from cholesterol"

- November 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"In the brain, the accumulation of cholesterol esters (at the expense of free cholesterol) increases with age and contributes to neurodegeneration. Intervention to liberate cholesterol from the fatty acids has a nerve-protecting effect in a worm model of Parkinson’s disease"

- November 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The age pigment, lipofuscin, is produced by oxidation of polyunsaturated lipids. The polyunsaturated fatty acids, that accumulate with age, have been known for about 80 years to be the main source of this material. These fatty acids inhibit the synthesis of cholesterol"

- November 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"At birth, there is a very low concentration of cholesterol ester, and the proportion remains low until about the age of 20, when growth slows, and beyond the age of 20, the cholesterol esters accumulate at about five times the rate of cholesterol accumulation. After the age of 40, the cholesterol esters become the main component of the lipids of blood vessels"

- November 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The increased serum cholesterol in stress is an important protective adaptation."

- November 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Besides eliminating polyunsaturated fats (n-3 and n-6) from the diet to reduce the formation of cholesterol esters and to reduce the decline of cholesterol synthesis with aging, supplementing with progesterone is a way to reduce the formation of esters (Synouri-Vrettakou and Mitropoulos, 1983; Miller and Melnykovych, 1984; Jeng and Klem, 1984; Mulas, et al., 2011; Anchisi, et al., 2012). Lidocaine is another inhibitor of cholesterol ester formation (Bell, 1981; Bell, et al., 1982) that is probably useful in some degenerative conditions."

- November 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Cholesterol is the precursor to pregnenolone, progesterone, and the other neurosteroids, and its own properties include stabilizing effects similar to progesterone’s."

- May 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Several studies have observed an association of lower postpartum cholesterol with symptoms of anxiety and depression"

- May 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"With insufficient cholesterol, the normally high postpartum concentration of progesterone isn’t likely to be maintained, and instead of brain restoration, the various pro-inflammatory effects of serotonin and estrogen will predominate, with effects such as depression, joint pain, anxiety, and brain edema."

- May 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"In animals, cholesterol is the basic sterol molecule, which is massively converted into other substances, including the steroid hormones. Thyroid hormone and vitamin A are required for this conversion."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"Many researchers (before the late 1940s) found that about 40% of the people in the U.S. showed evidence of deficient thyroid function (low oxygen consumption and high serum cholesterol), and benefitted from taking a thyroid supplement."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"Since the protective hormones depend on the ability of mitochondria to convert cholesterol into pregnenolone, it is clear that damage to mitochondria will affect our supply of protective hormones at the same time that our energy supply is failing, forcing us to shift to the atrophy-producing stress hormones, including cortisol."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"Thyroid tends to lower cholesterol by converting it into pregnenolone and other steroids,"

- Email Response by Ray Peat

"Considering the clear and well defined toxicity of adrenalin and free fatty acids, the role of cholesterol in heart disease begins to look sort of epiphenomenal."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"both low and high concentrations of blood cholesterol are associated with immune defects. Most of the people |have talked to who have multiple serious allergies have very low cholesterol levels, and hypothyroid people who are very susceptible to infections usually have high cholesterol,"

- 1992 - December - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Bacterial endotoxin inhibits mitochondrial respiration, and this respiration is needed for the intramitochondrial conversion of cholesterol into pregnenolone."

- 1992 - August.September - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"When the mitochondria are damaged, the protective steroid pregnenolone (which is made in the mitochondria from cholesterol) can’t be produced."

- 1991 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The protective hormones can be used directly, or their synthesis can be promoted by using succinic acid, thyroid, vitamin A, and the atropine type drugs, and maintaining adequate cholesterol"

- 1991 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Decades ago, unsaturated oils were found to lower cholesterol. However, studies showed that adding the polyunsaturated oils to the diet didnt prevent death from heart disease, but that it did increase cancer deaths."

- 1991 - April - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The body’s highest concentration of cholesterol exists in the brain. The level of cholesterol in the blood strongly influences the production of the protective hormones, such as progesterone."

- 1990 - October - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The existence of a few systems of positive feedback (self stimulation), however, indicates that in our fundamental structure we are biased in an expansive, upward direction. Progesterone (and its precursors, pregnenolone and cholesterol) and thyroid hormones participate in some of the important positive feedback systems, involving energy production, stress resistance, and brain growth."

- 1990 - October - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Within the mitochondria, a cytochrome P-450 converts cholesterol to pregnenolone. The loss of both energy and steroid hormones would have major consequences."

- 1989 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"While the thyroid hormone promotes the elimination of estrogen, it happens to be essential for the production of progesterone. Vitamin A (with cholesterol) is consumed at a high rate by the corpus luteum, when there is adequate thyroid hormone."

- 1988 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter