I just gotta rant.

We've been trained to think of cholesterol as this sticky poisonous goo flowing through our pipes, creating clogs everywhere it goes.

That's not what it does.

It's like little packages of spackle. When the wall of a blood vessel is damaged (often from stress, smoking, etc) the little package of spackle opens itself and spreads itself over the damaged area. Just like spackling a cracked pipe. Yes, now the pipe is a bit narrower, but it isn't leaking anymore.

The issue isn't that we have to many spackle packages (we NEED them!) the issue is we have too much damage to our pipes.

Stop damaging the pipes, and they stop narrowing every time they have to get repaired.

Cholesterol isn't the problem. It's what we're forcing our bodies to do with the cholesterol over and over again that is the problem.

Ever wonder why a stressed out person has their cholesterol levels climb? It's because stress is damaging their circulatory system and the body is throwing extra cholesterol in to patch the damage.

There have been some very interesting studies in baboons on social ranking/stress and arteriosclerosis and cholesterol levels.

Stress is the baddie.