Ask the ordinary Joe on the street to name the easiest ways to lower cholesterol, and he will probably tell you to cut off the eggs and the fattened calf from your dinner. He will not be exactly wrong or right, and you can not really blame him.
Despite the abundance of nutritional information everywhere you look, there is still a lot of confusion about cholesterol in the diet. And the studies over the last ten years have shown that eggs for breakfast will not kill you, and those devilishly saturated fats do not cause heart disease, made the message even more confusing.
For example, if you Google “how to lower cholesterol”, the most common advice remains: “reduce saturated fats.” So, what gives? We will correct the record. Here are the most surprising ways to lower your cholesterol. Read on, and do not miss 7 healthiest foods you should eat now for more information on healthy eating habits.
That’s right. Let the fat stand in the fire for a moment and stop drinking soda, high fructose wheat syrup (HFCS) and sweet tea. Cut out the refined carbohydrates, such as cookies, cakes, sugar grains and sweets. This step is the easiest way to lower cholesterol because sweet foods and beverages are very easy to identify in your diet.
In addition, cutting out added sugars provides the extra motivation for weight loss and better control over blood sugar (and hunger). (Psst: overweight raises cholesterol.) On the other hand, a sugary diet has a number on your lipid numbers: A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that when people increased their consumption of sugars, their HDL (‘good’) cholesterol decreased and their triglycerides (blood fats linked to cardiovascular diseases) increased. This is a bad combination: both low HDL and high triglycerides increase the risk of heart disease.
But it’s getting worse. This is how: HDL gets the ‘good’ moniker because it is the job of sending ‘bad’ cholesterol out of your veins where it can cause damage and to your liver where it is expelled from the body. If your HDL cholesterol is low, more of the bad LDL cholesterol may be left to damage the arteries. Interesting that JAMA a study found that high sugar consumption in women is associated with high LDL as well as low HDL. Another study, a 2015 report in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition coupled drink HFCS-sweetened beverages with increased blood concentrations of triglycerides, LDL cholesterol and apolipoprotein B, a component of LDL that causes the greatest damage to our arteries.
Bottom line: A combination of high LDL, high triglycerides and low HDL due to a diet high in sugar contains an unhealthy cholesterol profile. (Related: Top 7 culprits of creeping sugar from ‘The 14-Day No-Sugar Diet’.)
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Trans fat is considered to be the worst kind of fat for your heart because it raises LDL cholesterol levels. While some trans fats come from natural sources, trans fats caused by the industrial process of injecting hydrogen into vegetable oils to solidify them at room temperature are found in margarine, cookies in boxes, biscuits and other baked goods. Because they are so unhealthy, the Food and Drug Administration has drastically reduced the amount of trans fats allowed in packaged foods. Even if you see ‘0 trans fats’ on nutrition facts labels (or ‘partially hydrogenated vegetable oil’ in the ingredient list), there may be small allowable amounts in each serving, which can add up if you eat a lot of these types. of food.
Eating lots of saturated fats, which are commonly found in animal products, can raise your cholesterol, both good HDL and bad LDL, and increase inflammation, according to the Mayo Clinic. The National Cholesterol Education Program of the National Institutes of Health recommends that healthy adults limit their saturated fat intake to less than 7% of daily total calories. And the American Heart Association recommends reducing the saturated fat in the diet, despite studies showing no link between fat and heart disease. “The important question is’ what replaces you [saturated fat] with? ” says nutritionist and exercise physiologist Chris Mohr, RD, PhD, a corporate wellness consultant at MohrResults.com.
Studies have shown that when people reduce saturated fat, they tend to replace it with refined carbohydrates, and when that happens, there is no reduction in heart disease. “The key is to replace saturated fats with healthier sources of fat like olive oil, canola oil, nuts, seeds, avocados,” says Mohr. About a 2019 Circulation research a review of meta-analyzes on studies examining the Mediterranean diet (low in saturated fat, meat and dairy products and rich in plants and monounsaturated fat), researchers found that the diet low in saturated fat rich in fruits and vegetables and olive oil associated with significant decrease in coronary heart disease, stroke and overall cardiovascular disease.
You’ve heard it a thousand times: dietary fiber lowers cholesterol. But do you know the most important type when it comes to your blood fats? Soluble fiber directly reduces your low-density lipoprotein (LDL). You get it from oatmeal, beans, barley, sprouts, flaxseed, apples and pears. Do you need more ideas? Check out these 20 easy ways to add fiber to your diet.
This may not be the easiest way to improve your cholesterol profile, but it works. Studies have shown that if you do 30 minutes of aerobic exercise that increases your heart rate, it can lower the bad cholesterol and increase the good stuff. Exercise has a greater impact on HDL cholesterol, the lipids that sweep away the artery-clogging LDL. And the most effective way to increase your HDL quotient seems to be by pushing yourself hard. How difficult? Use high-intensity interval exercise, where you alternate between short continuous exercise and longer “rest” of easy exercise. In research conducted in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, exercise improved HDL numbers in young men who exercised three times a week during an HIIT workout during an intensity of 90% of the maximum heart rate. (Related: this four-second workout actually works, says new study.)