Sex hormones. Cholesterol is a building block for most sex hormones.

I will finish this chapter by pointing out a fact that I find pertinent to the discussion. The liver is quite capable of turning one type of chemical into almost any other type of chemical. It can turn protein into sugar, sugar into fat, glycerol into glucose, etc. If you eat a great deal of carbohydrate (which is all converted into glucose), the l

Dr Nikolai Anitschkov, a Russian researcher. He fed rabbits a high-cholesterol diet; their arteries then thickened and filled up with cholesterol.

And how silly of me even to question such research. Let me see. Rabbits are carnivores… check. Rabbits normally eat a high-cholesterol diet… check. And the thickenings that they get in their arteries are exactly the same as those found in humans… check. Ergo, feeding rabbits is an excellent model for heart-disease causation in humans… check.

Cell membranes. All cells in our body need cholesterol in their cell membranes. Without it they would disintegrate, as cholesterol provides structural integrity. •

‘Why do you think that an egg yolk is full of cholesterol?’ Answer: because it takes one hell of a lot of cholesterol to build a healthy chicken. It also takes a hell of a lot of cholesterol to build, and maintain, a healthy human being. In fact, cholesterol is so vital that all cells, apart from neurones, can manufacture cholesterol, and one of th

Right, now, forget everything you have just read. (What do you mean you already have? Damn cheek.) The fact is that, after all that I have written about cholesterol and related subjects … you do not actually have a cholesterol level in your bloodstream at all.

Vitamin D. This is a highly important vitamin, not only needed to create healthy bones, but now also known to be protective against a number of cancers. Vitamin D is synthesized from cholesterol by the action of sunlight on our skin.

1: It was not until some time in the early 1950s that coronary heart disease (CHD) was seen as a massive health problem. Recognition first occurred in the USA, almost certainly because the USA did have by far the highest rate of heart disease at that time…