Cholesterol

The liver's primary job, when the body is healthy and eating properly, is to manufacture bile. There are 60 varieties of bile that the liver can synthesize, and each variety corresponds to a variety of cholesterol that the bile then enables the body to form. The gallbladder stores the bile the liver produces, holding enough in reserve to digest approximately 20 to 30 pounds of fat. Aajonus attributed this large reserve to ancestral hunter-gatherer behavior: when a kill was made, a person might eat 10 to 20 pounds of fat in a single sitting, and without sufficient bile to process that load, the fat would simply pass through unused.

When food moves into the duodenum, the liver releases bile there to begin breaking down and disassembling fat molecules. The bile takes apart the molecular chains of dietary fat, and the body then reassembles those components into human cholesterol in whatever specific varieties the body requires at that moment. A bird in flight produces different specific cholesterol molecules than a sedentary person thinking all day, and a person running or climbing trees produces yet another profile. The body is always making the precise varieties it needs based on its current demands. The liver, to do this work properly, must be unobstructed, functioning, and supplied with quality raw fat to work from.

Different foods contribute differently to this process. Eggs are the only food that already contains cholesterol in formed, ready-to-use state, which is why they digest so quickly, in approximately 27 to 30 minutes. Raw meats contain no cholesterol, because the animal has already converted its fat into cholesterol for its own use. Raw butter, cream, and dairy contain no pre-formed cholesterol. Milk takes 6 to 10 hours to digest precisely because the fat in milk must go through the entire bile-conversion-to-cholesterol process before the body can utilize it. Blood from an animal is an exception and does contain cholesterol in directly usable form.

Aajonus traced the origin of the cholesterol myth to two intersecting economic interests: the vegetable oil industry and the pharmaceutical industry. The vegetable oil and seed oil companies needed to discredit animal fats in order to sell safflower oil, corn oil, and margarine. They introduced the claim that animal fats cause arterial problems and heart congestion, despite the fact that no tribe eating predominantly animal fat, even cooked, showed those conditions. The argument was never proven, Aajonus insisted. It was a marketing assertion dressed in the language of science.

The pharmaceutical industry then capitalized on the resulting fear. Once the public believed high cholesterol was dangerous, a permanent market for cholesterol-lowering drugs existed. Aajonus noted that 100 years ago, nearly everyone who could afford to eat well had high cholesterol, because high cholesterol is the natural consequence of eating enough fat to support full bodily function. Declaring cholesterol dangerous transformed a universal condition of health into a condition requiring lifelong medication. He described this as one of the most consequential fabrications in modern medicine, generating revenue not only from cholesterol drugs but from the entire apparatus of dietary supplement programs, exercise equipment markets, and related industries that arose around the anti-cholesterol narrative.

The medical establishment's partial retreat from the original claim, acknowledging that HDL is "good" while LDL is "bad," Aajonus read as damage control rather than honest revision. Once anthropological evidence from tribes eating high-fat, high-cholesterol diets showed no heart disease, the original blanket condemnation became impossible to defend. Rather than admit the entire framework was wrong, the industry divided cholesterol into acceptable and unacceptable categories and retained the basic structure of pharmaceutical intervention. Aajonus rejected the distinction entirely. Both LDL and HDL are necessary. What appears as "bad cholesterol" in blood tests is, in his framework, old toxic cholesterol that the body is in the process of eliminating, not cholesterol actively damaging tissue.

When someone on a raw diet sees their cholesterol rise, Aajonus regarded that as a positive sign. The body, when supplied with quality raw fat, begins mobilizing stored toxic cholesterol, pulling it out of tissues, moving it through the blood, and eliminating it through the urine, bowels, and skin. At any given moment during this process, both fresh health-giving cholesterol from current food intake and old stored toxic cholesterol from decades of cooked-fat consumption are simultaneously circulating in the blood. A standard blood test measures the total of both without distinguishing between them. Aajonus described a specialized laboratory test costing approximately $6,000 to $6,200 per test that could differentiate between old cauterized cholesterol that had been stored in the body for years and freshly synthesized cholesterol from recent food, but this test is not performed routinely, is not covered by insurance, and was not standard medical practice.

His working estimate was that roughly half of the cholesterol measurable in the blood of someone on the Primal Diet at any given time consists of old toxic material leaving the body, not new functional cholesterol. This means that if a person reads 300 on a standard cholesterol test, only approximately 150 of that represents active, newly made cholesterol, and the other 150 is on its way out. By this reasoning, a reading of 300 is actually a low functional cholesterol level. A rising cholesterol level is therefore a sign that detoxification is accelerating, not that the diet is causing harm.

Aajonus explicitly said he would celebrate if a client's cholesterol reached 700. He wanted cholesterol levels to be sky high. The higher the measured level, the faster the body is eliminating stored toxic cholesterol accumulated from previous cooked-fat diets, and the more newly synthesized functional cholesterol is available to support energy, lubrication, and cellular protection. For most people on this diet, a high intake of raw fat lowers cholesterol levels within approximately six weeks, but in some cases high levels persist for years while the person's health measurably improves. Aajonus's position was to ignore the numbers entirely when eating raw fat, because the numbers do not distinguish between beneficial and toxic cholesterol and therefore communicate nothing useful.

Aajonus consistently emphasized that each person has a different cholesterol requirement, and no universal number should be treated as a standard. The pharmaceutical-defined thresholds, whether 140, 170, or 200, were, in his framing, not physiologically derived but commercially set to maximize the number of people who would qualify for medication.

He cited multiple cases of high-performing individuals who maintained exceptionally high cholesterol levels and were exceptional in their field precisely because of it. A Hall of Fame basketball player, whose name Aajonus said he was not permitted to disclose, maintained a cholesterol level consistently between 672 and 680 throughout his playing career and was described as unmatched on the court. When that player took medication that brought his cholesterol down to 500, his performance deteriorated. In later years, described at various points as being in his late 80s or early 90s, this same athlete continued to outplay much younger opponents on the basketball court with a cholesterol level averaging around 672, which never dropped below 602 and never exceeded 680.

An Olympic gymnast champion, described at various points as 19, 24, 25, 26, or 27 years old across different seminar accounts, had a cholesterol level that varied in different accounts between 324 and 376. Before she came to Aajonus, while eating cooked food, she experienced colds or flus every three to six weeks that would incapacitate her for approximately two weeks each time, followed by a week of recovery, leaving only about three weeks of productive training before the next illness. The Olympic coaching staff was prepared to remove her from the team because of her unreliability. When she came to Aajonus, he put her on a raw fat diet and maintained her cholesterol at its natural high level rather than suppressing it. Her illness frequency dropped to approximately once per year, she was able to train ten to twelve hours a day without fatigue, and she subsequently won a silver medal. In one account, Aajonus described her cholesterol staying between 357 and 370 for two years on the diet. In another he described it stabilizing around 327 to 350. In yet another he described it at 376. The specific number varied across different seminar accounts, but the consistent point was that her high cholesterol level, maintained through raw fat consumption, was inseparable from her athletic capacity.

A figure skater, described as approximately 28 years old, came to Aajonus chronically fatigued and on the verge of retirement, unable to sustain more than about an hour and a half of training before exhaustion. After going on the raw diet, within six months she was performing longer and more vigorously than 16- and 18-year-old competitors. Her cholesterol was around 210, which Aajonus described as not particularly high for a female of her training load. He doubled the amount of fat she was consuming, and her cholesterol level dropped from 210 to 187. She continued to improve. Aajonus cited this as evidence that the direction of cholesterol movement on the diet does not follow a simple rule: sometimes adding more raw fat raises cholesterol as more detoxification occurs, and sometimes it drops cholesterol as the body becomes more efficient.

A banker described as approximately 6 feet 3 inches tall and significantly overweight had a cholesterol level of 267. Aajonus put him on a stick of raw butter per day, approximately 4 ounces of raw cream per day, and 10 raw eggs per day. Three weeks later his cholesterol had dropped to 167. Aajonus used this case to illustrate that the body's response to raw fat is not predictable by conventional logic, and that the cholesterol reading at any moment is a snapshot of an ongoing dynamic process, not a fixed number tied to intake.

Aajonus also reported on his own cholesterol levels across different periods. He mentioned a reading of 148 in 1984. At other points he described preferring to maintain his own level around 270 to 300, or "in the high 200s." In one account he said it used to run around 400 and had come down over many years of clean eating. In another he mentioned it dropping to 198 after returning from Asia, which he described as "terribly low" and not enough for proper function. After receiving injections for some reason, his cholesterol rose again. He also mentioned a blood test at Washington University Medical School in St. Louis where his cholesterol was described as sky high, with no hardening of the arteries and no cardiovascular problems.

Aajonus was explicit that foods do not contain cholesterol in a problematic form, with the limited exception of eggs, which contain small amounts of cholesterol already synthesized and ready for use. Raw meats, raw butter, raw cream, and raw dairy contain no cholesterol; the animal's body has already converted its fat into cholesterol and utilized it. When a person eats raw fat, the body makes what Aajonus called exclusively good or beneficial cholesterol from it. When a person eats cooked fat, especially hydrogenated vegetable oils, margarine, or other processed fats, the body is forced to work with damaged, heat-altered fat molecules. From these it produces what he described as bad cholesterol, including lipid peroxides and other toxic byproducts.

This toxic cholesterol, once made, tends to be stored intercellularly or in tissues rather than utilized. Over time it accumulates throughout the body. When someone begins eating raw fat and the liver starts functioning better, the body begins pulling this stored toxic cholesterol out of tissues and moving it through the bloodstream for elimination. This is what registers on a standard blood test as a high cholesterol reading. The cholesterol is not being freshly made from the current diet in a harmful way; it is old stored material in transit. Aajonus described it as analogous to remodeling a house: seeing old material being carried out is a good sign, not a cause for alarm. You want to see the old toxic material moving through and out, because if it stays stored in tissues it continues to cause damage there.

The only fats that Aajonus identified as genuinely creating problematic cholesterol were the trans fatty acids, hydrogenated vegetable oils, and processed vegetable and seed oils. These are the substances that, when poured into soil, turn it to rock. In the body, they harden in the same way, creating the arterial plaque and calcification conventionally attributed to cholesterol from animal foods. Peanut butter also appeared on his list of problematic fats in this context. Walnut oil was specifically noted as having a tendency to lower cholesterol levels, which Aajonus regarded as a drawback on this diet for most people, since the goal is to maintain the highest possible cholesterol level.

Among the three primary roles of cholesterol, the protective function was one Aajonus returned to often. The cholesterol varieties dedicated to protection work by absorbing poisons before those poisons can penetrate into cells and damage RNA or DNA. They create a coating effect over skin and cell surfaces that makes it more difficult for environmental toxins, insects, and other harmful agents to penetrate. In a society as toxic as the modern one, Aajonus argued, the body needs extremely high cholesterol levels simply to have enough protective cholesterol available to intercept the constant inflow of environmental poisons.

Fat in general, and cholesterol specifically, arrests poisons in the body. People who are thin or who have low cholesterol have less capacity to arrest incoming toxins, meaning those toxins go directly into cells and cause damage at the cellular level. This is why, in Aajonus's framework, people with higher fat stores and higher cholesterol are often more robust under toxic conditions, while lean people or those on fat-suppressing diets become more vulnerable to toxic accumulation in their cells and organs.

The same logic applied to people who are overweight: excess fat storage is not pathological but protective, a way the body sequesters poisons away from vital tissues when the cholesterol and active fat systems cannot handle the toxic load fast enough. This is directly related to the cholesterol dynamic because much of the stored fat in overweight individuals contains the sequestered toxic cholesterol accumulated over years of cooked-fat consumption, and those people will tend to show higher cholesterol readings as the body begins releasing and eliminating that stored material.

The third of cholesterol's major functions in Aajonus's framework is the production of biological solvents that dissolve and remove toxicity from the system. These cholesterol varieties function essentially as the body's internal detergents, capable of breaking down accumulated toxic material in tissues, including material that the blood and lymphatic system cannot easily move in its un-dissolved state. The lymphatic system, which Aajonus described as approximately 80% fat, 15% protein, and 5% carbohydrate, is heavily dependent on cholesterol for this cleansing role. The lymph system uses cholesterol substances to dissolve solid or semi-solid toxic accumulations and carry them to elimination pathways.

Aajonus specifically described virus as among the solvents produced by cholesterol, a framing that fits his broader view that viruses are internally produced chemical solvents rather than infectious external agents. In his framework, having adequate cholesterol means having adequate capacity to produce the full range of cleansing solvents the body needs. A low cholesterol level therefore does not mean a lower disease risk but a reduced capacity to clean toxicity from the body, leading to accumulation of poisons in tissues, which ultimately produces the degenerative diseases conventionally blamed on cholesterol itself.

Aajonus's position on cholesterol-lowering medication was unambiguous: it is harmful and exists solely to generate pharmaceutical revenue. When medication lowers cholesterol, it lowers all varieties, including the protective, energizing, and cleansing cholesterols. The person becomes deficient in all three categories of biological function simultaneously. They have less capacity to fuel themselves efficiently, less lubrication for joints and tissues, less capacity to sequester poisons before they reach cells, and less capacity to produce the solvents that dissolve and remove toxic accumulations.

He described the pattern by which pharmaceutical thresholds are set: a number is selected at which the industry can mandate medication, and any measurement above that number is redefined as pathological. The specific number chosen has no physiological basis but is set at a level that captures the largest possible number of paying patients. When someone is told their cholesterol is too high and begins taking medication, the medication must be continued indefinitely because the conditions that produce the high reading, namely a body loaded with stored toxic cholesterol from decades of cooked-fat diet, do not resolve through pharmaceutical suppression. Only the elimination of that stored cholesterol through raw fat consumption and the body's natural detoxification resolves the underlying condition, and the medication suppresses the very cholesterol the body needs to do that work.

Aajonus described a specialized laboratory test that cost approximately $6,000 to $6,200 per test, which he had developed in collaboration with a cardiologist he described as world-famous, though he did not name him in most accounts. This test could examine fat molecules circulating in the blood and determine whether they were freshly synthesized, recently derived from current dietary fat, or old and cauterized, meaning they had been stored in the body for years, sometimes decades. A fat molecule stored in tissue for ten or twenty years looks chemically different from one produced within the past day, and this test could identify that difference.

Standard cholesterol blood tests, costing around $30 to $40, make no such distinction. They measure LDL and HDL quantities without regard to whether those molecules are new and functional or old and stored. Aajonus used this gap to explain why standard readings are meaningless as diagnostic tools on his diet: a reading of 400 on this diet might reflect 200 units of healthy, newly synthesized cholesterol and 200 units of old stored toxic cholesterol in transit out of the body, which is a completely different situation from a reading of 400 in someone eating a cooked diet who is actively producing harmful cholesterol from damaged fats.

The cardiologist he worked with on developing this test died approximately three years before a particular seminar account, and the full development of the test ultimately cost around $23,000 rather than the initial estimate of $8,000. The cardiologist never adopted the diet himself despite years of witnessing the results in Aajonus's clients.

Aajonus repeatedly recommended a specific book he called "The Cholesterol Myth," which he cited throughout his seminars and referenced in his books. The full title, as given in one printed source, is "The Cholesterol Myths: Exposing the Fallacy That Saturated Fat and Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease" by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD, ISBN 0-9670897-0-0, published in 2000. Aajonus described the author as a biochemist, or in some accounts a scientist, who devoted his entire professional life to the scientific study of cholesterol. He described the book as providing a complete scientific unfolding of why the cholesterol hypothesis is false, not merely on a raw diet but even in the context of cooked diets, with no credible proof that cholesterol from food or produced by the body causes heart disease. Aajonus called him a genius on the facts and said anyone who read the book would never again regard cholesterol as a threat. He included a reference to this book in the cholesterol section of his recipe book index.

Among all foods, Aajonus identified raw eggs as the only dietary source of cholesterol already in a ready-to-use form. Raw meats contain no cholesterol because the animal's metabolic process has already converted fat into cholesterol and consumed it. Raw butter, cream, and all other dairy products contain no pre-formed cholesterol; the fat in those foods must go through the full liver-bile-conversion process before becoming cholesterol in the human body, which is why milk requires 6 to 10 hours to fully digest.

Blood from animals, consumed directly, does contain cholesterol in directly usable form, and Aajonus described the combination of half blood and half milk as producing extraordinary energy, though this is a separate protocol from everyday eating.

Egg yolk contains cholesterol that the body does not need to reconstruct from scratch, which is one reason eggs digest in approximately 27 minutes and are particularly valuable during illness or weakness when digestive capacity is reduced. The lecithin present in egg yolk is also specific to eggs among common foods. Aajonus repeatedly stated that the egg is the most digestible food in the world and the only food that contains every nutrient on the planet, and its pre-formed cholesterol content contributes directly to why it is so rapidly utilized by the body.

He specifically noted that blending or whipping eggs alone damages the egg. Mixing eggs with other food before blending insulates them, preventing oxidative damage during the mechanical process. Sucking eggs directly, drawing both yolk and white together, was recommended as the ideal method for someone in a weak period who needs rapid nutritional support, particularly someone whose digestion is too compromised to handle meat or dairy.

Aajonus made a specific note about walnut oil and nuts in general in relation to cholesterol. On the Primal Diet, the goal is to maintain the highest possible cholesterol level, and walnuts have an oil that tends to lower cholesterol levels. He described this as a reason to be cautious about walnut consumption on this diet. He also noted that nuts in general are difficult for humans to digest properly because humans lack sufficient enzymes to break down nut proteins and fats effectively, though softer nuts such as pecans, pine nuts, and walnuts are slightly more digestible than harder varieties. The cholesterol-lowering effect of walnut oil was cited as a specific drawback in the context of a diet where every variety of cholesterol is considered necessary and desirable in high quantities.

Aajonus described the trajectory of cholesterol levels over time on the Primal Diet as variable and extended. For most people eating a high intake of raw fat, cholesterol levels drop within approximately six weeks. This happens because the liver is functioning better, the body is producing its cholesterol efficiently from quality raw material, and the rate of new functional cholesterol production stabilizes as the system normalizes. The body is no longer simultaneously producing functional cholesterol and mobilizing stored toxic cholesterol at the same rate, so the overall measured level drops even though fat intake is high or even increased.

In a smaller number of cases, cholesterol levels remain elevated for years despite improving health in every other measurable way. Aajonus interpreted this as a sign that the body has a very large reserve of stored toxic cholesterol accumulated over decades, and the elimination process is ongoing and extensive. He stated that this elevated reading continuing for years has not posed harm or threat in any case he observed over more than 32 years of practice. His recommendation was the same regardless of whether levels dropped or remained high: completely ignore the cholesterol reading and continue eating raw fat.

He noted that his own cholesterol had come down significantly over many years, from a high of around 400 in earlier years to approximately 230 to 240 in later years, with periods as low as 198 after extended time in Asia without full access to his diet, which he described as uncomfortably low. He said he preferred his own level to be in the high 200s to around 300 as a reflection of a body still engaged in meaningful detoxification while also producing adequate functional cholesterol.