Weight vs. cholesterol

[ScienceNostalgia101]

So we as a society have categorized weight into "underweight," "healthy," and "overweight." We assume there is an interval of weight that is healthier, in and of itself, than weight above or below it.

 

However, what I'm left wondering is; how do we distinguish the effects of weight itself from the high cholesterol that often happens to; but does not always; correlate with it?

 

I was once underweight. I tried to put on the weight by eating a lot of fatty foods; ones that happened to be especially high, however, in saturated fats. That left me with high cholesterol while I was still underweight. It stands to reason that one can be overweight with low cholesterol. Americans also eat a lot of foods high in saturated fat, so it stands to reason the overweight Americans will be more likely to have high cholesterol. So how, then, do they know that the "weight" is what's causing their health problems, and not, you know, the cholesterol that tends to go with it?

 

Have there been any studies on people who became overweight by, let's say, overeating avocado? Overeating peanuts? Overeating fish? Or any other such foods that are low in saturated fat and high in unsaturated fat?

Edited January 4, 2020 by ScienceNostalgia101

[guidoLamoto]

Cholesterol levels are determined genetically with very little, if any, correlation to diet. Triglyceride levels have both a genetic and dietary influence. The chol & triglycerides in your blood are not the ones you ate, but the ones your body (mostly your liver) synthesized according to your genetic "plans," out of the basic Ac-CoA building blocks formed as products of digestion.

It's difficult to claim hi chol influences arteriosclerosis when the coefficient of correlation is only ~0.3. A little better predictor of outcomes is the LDL/HDL ratio, but even that has only ~ 0.5 coef of Corr.....Correlation of hi WBC with infection is virtually 1.0--- does that mean taking chemotherapy to lower your WBC is the right way to treat infection?

Taking regular exercise improves, statistically speaking, your chance of heart attack just as much as hi chol raises it.

People who are overweight usually have confounding factors, such as lower likelihood of taking regular exercise or having diabetes, that increase their risks of arteriosclerosis.

The main purpose of insulin is to regulate fat metabolism: it enhances fat production and inhibits the burning of fat. Eating a hi carb diet tends to increase fat stores, while a higher fat diet does not lead to as much fat production....Proof is easily deduced from the usual course of Type I (insulin deficiency) diabetes: it's usually first found in a chubby young kid of 5 or six yrs old who looses all sorts of weight rather rapidly. The doc finds his BS sky high and starts him on insulin. The kid rapidly regains his fat stores. There are plenty of lab studies that confirm the central role of insulin in fat metabolism.