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Just read an interesting article (unfortunately, in Japanese) about a study on cholesterol in India. South india us mostly vegetarian, and North India eats meat. Obviously, North India has higher cholesterol levels, and south is low. Researchers counted heart disease incidents, and found that subjects from the south had 17 times more heart problems than those from the north.

The reason behind this, they suspect is in ghee. (the butter thing) The people in the north use all natural ghee, which is pretty much butter. The people in the south use oils like margarine and other processed vegetable oils, containing trans fat. 20 years later, the north suffers from the same problems as well, because the use of processed vegetable oils has spread. (probably being sold as "healthy" alternatives)

I'm sure there are many ways to look at this.. but obviously, trans fat kills.

Trans fat is the worst kind.

However, there are more differences in that study than what kind of ghee people eat. It could be that. In fact, it easily could be that. But it could also have to do with the no-meat-eaters missing out on something. Do you know of other studies that compare vegetarian vs. predatorian lifestyles?

Are people in northern India more physically active than in the south?

I'm not so sure about some of the facts given in the article. Diet tends to be pretty closely related to religion in India. Muslims tend to eat meat whereas Hindus tend to be vegetarian. There are, however, many Hindus who eat meat (though it's rare for Hindus to eat beef, at least in India). There are also quite a few communities in the south where fish is an important part of the diet. Anyway, there are probably more Muslims in the north than in the south, which might lend some weight to this hypothesis, and the Muslim population is quite large, definitely large enough to skew the stats. Either way, I don't think any such study is accurate/valid without a proper picture of where the facts are coming from, and perhaps a broader picture of society and its environment. For example, climate in the north is much cooler than in the south, in fact the contrast is quite stark. This could quite possibly have some relevance to peoples' lifestyles. Also in the last 15 years or so, TV has become much much more influential in peoples' lives, which could also be relevant.

ya, I'm not too sure of the details of the study as the study in india was only quoted as a part of a bigger article on new findings on cholesterol. One other interesting fact is that because we can only eat about 1/5 of the total cholesterol (calculated from a Japanese diet), and our body synthesizes the rest, what we eat doesn't impact the over all amount of cholesterol. We eat more, and the body just produces less. This is not a widely known fact.

Of course, having a diet extremely high in cholesterol has other implications than just cholesterol, so it's definitely not recommended. But the point is, is that if you have problems with cholesterol, there are more effective ways to control it, than to eat less cholesterol, because your body just produces more of it even if you eat less. Researchers actually did a 10 eggs a day test on a healthy individual, and found the overall cholesterol didn't change. Cholesterol problems seem more about how the body produces, and reacts to cholesterol, than how much of it we eat given that our diet is healthy.

Again, trans fat messes up how your body reacts to cholesterol and generally destroys everything.. so stay away from margarine and other partially hydrogenated oils! It's much healthier to have the real stuff, with moderation.

The last article was on a finding that people with substantially low cholesterol(180mg/dL), actually have a higher death rate than those who are just under the danger zone (200mg/dL). Obviously, your body uses cholesterol, so not having enough causes other secondary complications.

Also, the basic dietary difference in Japan and US is substantial, so the hypothesis might not be applicable here.

yeah, agreed. Guess it always goes back to enjoying what each ingredient has to offer (real ones), be it vegetarian or mixed. When the food is good, you really don't need to shove it down your throat so you won't taste it. (eureka!) A lot of problems seem to come from the body not knowing how to process synthetic alternatives. Boo.

No argument here. Natural ingredients taste better and make you feel better. Cheap processed food is cheap for a reason. I'd go as far as to say that hydrogenated fats in particular are nothing short of evil, and manufacturers who use them are criminally irresponsible.

yes, good food is the key. the royals eat nothing but specially grown, organic, high quality food. McDonalds is for the masses..........

no doubt....

then you're a useless eater like the rest of us....