re: I need to lower my cholesterol

Functional approach to heart health

Questions you should be asking yourself:

What is the biggest problem with my numbers (hint: your triglyceride to HDL ratio)

Do cholesterol levels really matter?

Do the fats/cholesterol I eat impact my cholesterol and is that even something I should worry about?

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I do not know anything about you, but here are generalities:

To drop Triglycerides- cut out processed box/bagged, fried foods/oxidized fats/high heated vegetable oils. Minimize /earn your carbs
To raise HDL - well sourced fats, even saturated fats (in the abscence of the oxidized trash/carbs excess above) and exercise do this
Total LDL can really only be evaluated by particle size. May be acceptable even if mildly elevated.

Recs: Paleo/keto diet. Can consider intermittent fasting if not overly stressed at baseline. Resistence strength training 2 to 3 days a week. Supplements can be layered if needed. Statins if this does not work (or if particle size /genetics are not in your favor)

PS : if you follow the above you will likely lose weight/body fat, boost your endogenous testosterone /growth hormone production, feel and look better

LINK


LINK

quote:

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Saturated fat could be good for you, study suggests

Date: December 2, 2016 Source: University of Bergen

Summary: A new diet intervention study raises questions regarding the validity of a diet hypothesis that has dominated for more than half a century: that dietary fat and particularly saturated fat is unhealthy for most people.

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quote:

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High quality food is healthier

"We here looked at effects of total and saturated fat in the context of a healthy diet rich in fresh, lowly processed and nutritious foods, including high amounts of vegetables and rice instead of flour-based products," says PhD candidate Vivian Veum.

"The fat sources were also lowly processed, mainly butter, cream and cold-pressed oils." "Our findings indicate that the overriding principle of a healthy diet is not the quantity of fat or carbohydrates, but the quality of the foods we eat," says PhD candidate Johnny Laupsa-Borge.

Saturated fat increases the "good" cholesterol Saturated fat has been thought to promote cardiovascular diseases by raising the "bad" LDL cholesterol in the blood. But even with a higher fat intake in the FATFUNC study compared to most comparable studies, the authors found no significant increase in LDL cholesterol. Rather, the "good" cholesterol increased only on the very-high-fat diet.

"These results indicate that most healthy people probably tolerate a high intake of saturated fat well, as long as the fat quality is good and total energy intake is not too high. It may even be healthy," says Ottar Nygård.

"But the alleged health risks of eating good-quality fats have been greatly exaggerated. It may be more important for public health to encourage reductions in processed flour-based products, highly processed fats and foods with added sugar," he says.

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Preach...

Cut carbs. It will lower the ldl and the triglycerides. It will raise the hdl.

Your top priority should be reducing the LDL to as close to 100 as possible, especially if you have parents, or other close family with histories of stroke and heart attack. That risk is going to increase as you get older. Diet and exercise certainly play a part. Talk to your doc. A low dose statin drug at some point in the future may be needed. What you should not do is put on any significant additional weight if you can help it.

Start by researching statins efficacy on reducing mortality rates. They do a great job of lowering numbers, but you can find many articles that argue that they do not reduce mortality rate, at best it's 15 to 20%. Where they do shine is in plaque stabilization. For people that have heart disease it is very important for them to stay on it. Amgen is producing a new drug repatha that could actually reverse plaque in the arteries.

If you want to decrease your triglyceride, exercise and decreased alcohol is a way to do it. But also people who drink daily have a significantly lower risk of heart disease, but increased risk of arrhythmias that are more easily fixable then heart disease.

If you want to decrease LDL stop eating starches and sugars, if you want to increase your HDL eat more fats.

Two of the best sources that I know that you can educate yourself On diet is cardiologist Charles Williams author of wheat belly, and Gary Tobes author of why we get fat.

Before you do anything you need to read this book!!

Cholesterol Clarity

This will give you all the information you need to understand your numbers before you start taking advice from every joe blow. I reduced my number significantly with this book and The Wild Diet by Abel James.

And do not start statins right away! Do research!!!

You don't know me from Adam but trust me on this book.

It's an equation. Looks like yours would be 257.

Cut out carbs- my cholesterol was incalculable it was so bad February of this year. Cut carbs, dropped 25 lbs, numbers came back better than ever!

Maybe u should eat red meat and exercise

Are you black? probably 70% of cholesterol is genetics. Diet and exercise might account for the other 30%.

I've seen quite a few very obese whites who haven't exercised a day in their life with normal cholesterol levels.

Do you have high blood pressure too?