Best Diet For Lowering Cholesterol – Many of us dread doctor’s appointments, even if we love our doctors. This is especially true if we’ve been encouraged to make changes to our diet and exercise but haven’t achieved much. Hey, it happens. You blink and another year has passed. But these annual check-ups and adjustments to our self-care are very important, especially when dealing with one of the most common problems facing people today – high cholesterol.
You may be confused about the true impact of cholesterol on heart health because there’s been so much buzz about it lately, so I teamed up with our resident blogger Jen Reilly to break down the facts on this somewhat hyped topic.
Best Diet For Lowering Cholesterol
Cholesterol was previously thought to be the only determinant of heart disease risk. However, researchers now realize that cholesterol is only one piece of the puzzle (triglycerides, blood pressure, obesity and diabetes are the rest) (study).
Cholesterol Lowering Meal Plan Kick The Ldl Down, Increase That Hdl
A low-fat diet has previously been recommended to lower cholesterol and prevent heart disease. Dietary recommendations have changed and focus on getting enough omega-3 fats, which can raise good cholesterol, avoiding trans fats and limiting saturated fats, which can raise bad cholesterol.
Some researchers and diet experts have begun to downplay the role of saturated fat when it comes to heart disease risk and cholesterol levels ( research article ). However, their conclusions are based on observational studies, which are not as reliable when it comes to definitively establishing cause and effect. Saturated fats (and mostly animal fats) are still only part of the heart disease equation, but they need to be limited if you want to keep your heart and other parts of your body healthy.
The novelty of the heart disease risk group is sugar. Research now points to avoiding simple carbohydrates and added sugars, especially added fructose, because it raises triglycerides and other heart disease risk factors ( study ). The good news is that many of the heart health recommendations remain the same: plenty of plant-based foods, fiber, maintaining a healthy weight, exercise—and of course, avoiding smoking!
However, the fact is that more than 102 million adults in the United States have high cholesterol. That’s a lot of people! Although cholesterol is not the only indicator of heart disease, it does matter (study) because it can increase the risk of buildup in the walls of arteries.
Cholesterol: Top Foods To Improve Your Numbers
So here are the three main warning signs your doctor looks for when checking your cholesterol: 1. Low levels of good cholesterol (HDL) compared to total cholesterol. 2. Bad cholesterol, which contains many more risky small, dense particles (there are three types of particles, and the smallest one is not good for the ticker). 3. High triglycerides (relatives of cholesterol) (study, study, and study). This can lead to blockages and a heart attack or stroke – not something we want to mess around with.
In addition to the above, here are some other ways you can modify your food choices to prevent high cholesterol and heart disease.
Hopefully, your doctor has mentioned that food choices, exercise, and weight control can have a powerful effect on cholesterol and triglyceride levels. If not, see if you can give him a 6 month chance to make changes and recheck your levels before prescribing statins. It usually takes about 6 months for your body to respond to dietary changes, so be patient and persistent.
You’ve probably heard the typical recommendations for keeping your arteries clean. Eat more vegetables. Avoid too much saturated animal fat, trans fat and fried foods. Limit sweets and simple carbohydrates, which raise triglycerides (and possibly the worst bad cholesterol). Maintain a healthy weight, reduce stress and exercise. When it comes to the diet part of the plan, there are a few additional tweaks you can make to boost your artery-cleansing powers.
Amazing Foods To Reduce Ldl Cholesterol
To make these tips even easier, I’ve created a handy chart of my top 5 cholesterol-lowering recipes below.
If you’re trying to lower your cholesterol and improve your heart health, I hope you’ll gain a better understanding of the role cholesterol plays in your overall well-being and how you can take a proactive role in keeping it in a healthy range.
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Do you want to look better and feel your best? Start here – the ultimate guide to crazy sexy living and eating (yummy recipes included!). Cholesterol is one of the number one targets people look at when determining the state of our metabolic health, and in some ways, that’s right. It’s one of the most common markers your doctor will check for if you’re over 30. There is a multibillion-dollar industry around cholesterol-lowering drugs. Lowering cholesterol is a remarkable health goal for many, and it’s not my job to advise against it, but be aware that it’s a vital substance in the body. It is the precursor to all of our steroid hormones – think estrogen and testosterone. It is the building block of vitamin D when we are exposed to ultraviolet radiation and is a vital component of cell membranes. With this in mind, should we just aim to reduce it unintentionally, or should we understand it a little better and learn how to improve its effects on our bodies? I feel the latter, and there are some key dietary tweaks you can make to make it happen.
High Cholesterol Diet Guidelines & Food Tips
It is important to be aware of the differences between the different subtypes we are talking about when it comes to cholesterol. The first thing you need to know is that the terms “good cholesterol” and “bad” cholesterol are actually quite meaningless. Cholesterol is a single substance. When we hear these terms, we are usually talking about LDL and HDL. These are not cholesterol. These are lipoproteins. These are cholesterol transporters. Low-density lipoprotein and high-density lipoprotein. I use the analogy of 2 bus routes. A bus takes people from the city center to the surrounding villages. The other takes people from the surrounding villages and brings them into the city center. LDL cholesterol carries cholesterol from the liver to the peripheral areas of the body, while HDL collects cholesterol from peripheral areas and transports it to the liver for breakdown and removal. The idea is that if your LDL is higher than your HDL, more cholesterol is deposited in the periphery and you are at greater risk of developing arterial plaque. Likewise, if you have higher HDL levels, more cholesterol is recycled and removed than is deposited. While these ratios can provide some degree of information about overall metabolic health, this old hat view falls very short as there is much more to it.
Sorry to break it to you, but size matters. In terms of particle size, it is!! This probably applies to everything else. LDL particle size. LDL can be found in very large, spherical clouds, such as patches drifting through our arteries, and it poses absolutely no risk to cardiovascular health. Then we can have different sizes of LDL particles up to the worst – the small, dense LDL particle. These tiny particles have a high atherogenicity, which means that they easily embed themselves in the endothelium (inner lining) of blood vessels and begin plaque formation, leading to cardiovascular disease. This is one of the key parts of my personal approach to dietary cholesterol management.
The first thing to focus on is the glycemic impact of your diet. This means how fast and how much your diet raises your blood sugar. This is important for many reasons, from maintaining energy levels, managing diabetes risk, and controlling body weight. But in this context, a diet that raises blood sugar very quickly and very high is associated with dramatically increased levels of small dense LDL particles, which are the highly atherogenic kind. The second blow that this type of diet causes is that it is to inflammation like gasoline to a bonfire. Inflammation damages the endothelium, which increases the risk of cholesterol infiltration. So if you create an environment where the endothelium is at greater risk of cholesterol infiltration, and then you create a higher level of cholesterol particles that infiltrate very easily and efficiently, you can see what happens!
The way to reduce the glycemic effect of the diet is a two-fold process. The first is to be smart with carbohydrates. This means what types of carbohydrates you eat and how much of them you eat. Always choose brown, whole grain or multi-grain grains from carbohydrate sources – brown rice, whole grain bread, whole grain pasta, etc.
Supplements For Lower Cholesterol: Natural Options
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