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Natural ways to lower cholesterol

C

chalcedony

Member
In the contemporary world today, all of us are at high risk for heart diseases because of soaring levels of cholesterol in our blood. I find it important that we are well informed about the natural things we can do to prevent these diseases before high healthcare costs will cripple us trying to cure diseases that has no cure even today. In my struggle to maintain a healthy lifestyle and weight management with all the tasty foods around, I realized that ultimately what matters most is to have quality of life in spite of all imperfections we face. Last week, I found a very helpful book which I downloaded into my Kindle Library. It can be downloaded for free but I do not know until when it is for free. It talks about the effective natural ways we can lower our cholesterol levels. I hope the information can also help you like it helped me. I downloaded the book from here:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Lower-Your-Ch ... stine+levy
 
Just downloaded it and a brief scan reveals quite a lot of sense but again it demonizes saturated fats. No one particularly denies the dangers of trans fats, junk food and other highly processed carbohydrates but stating as the book does "take the yolks out of eggs" and that people should avoid eating them or not drink whole milk or "cut all the excess fat off meat" has no real scientific basis in the 21st century.

If you have an open mind research this lady. http://blogg.passagen.se/dahlqvistannika/?anchor=my_lowcarb_dietary_programe_in The link I've provided is for her low carb high fat regime recommended for weight loss and T2 diabetics. She was taken through the Swedish court system by dietitians back in 2006 for advocating a low carb high fat approach but won her case and nowadays the Swedish Healthcare system uses a lot of her recommendations for their dietary advice to both diabetics and their general population. Google "Kost Vid Diabetes" and get hold of the 2011 official Swedish Healthcare document for treating T2 diabetes to see her regime put into action at a national level. Sweden by the way has the worlds 3rd lowest rate of diabetes just behind Luxemborg and Iceland.

From 2011 onwards the Americans through the ADA's 2011 & 2012 position statements recommend carbohydrate intake be restricted to around 130g / day. On a 2000 calorie per day regime that amounts to a 26% carbohydrate regime. So what should people be eating for the other 74%? The RDA for protein is set at 16% so that leaves 58% as fat.

If you want links to all the info I've just mentioned just ask as they have been posted many times on this forum.

You may believe a low fat lifestyle is the only way but you are denying the results that I and others posted on the other thread you entered yesterday. How do you account for that fact that I meet all the N.I.C.E guideline targets on my 65% fat diet or that members like borofergie do an 80%+ fat diet and still meet the guidelines. Neither of us take statins. If your low fat theories were anywhere near the truth our cholesterol levels would be through the roof.

The issue is you are relying on old 20th century bad data and bad studies. Things have moved on and you and other health care professionals in this country need to retrain a learn about the counter studies and research done in this century in my opinion.
 
Stephane Guyenet said:
the hypothesis that dietary saturated fat increases serum cholesterol. This idea is so deeply ingrained in the scientific literature that many authors don't even bother providing references for it anymore. When references are provided, they nearly always point to the same type of study: short-term controlled diet trials, in which volunteers are fed different fats for 2-13 weeks and their blood cholesterol measured (2)*. These studies show that saturated fat increases both LDL cholesterol ("bad cholesterol") and HDL cholesterol ("good cholesterol"), but typically the former more than the latter. These are the studies on which the diet-heart hypothesis was built.

But now we have a problem. Nearly every high-quality (prospective) observational study ever conducted found that saturated fat intake is not associated with heart attack risk (3). So if saturated fat increases blood cholesterol, and higher blood cholesterol is associated with an increased risk of having a heart attack, then why don't people who eat more saturated fat have more heart attacks?
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Stephane Guyenet said:
why do researchers almost never cite observational studies to support the idea that dietary saturated fat increases blood cholesterol? Surely if the hypothesis is correct, then people who habitually eat a lot of saturated fat should have high cholesterol, right? One reason may be that in most instances, when researchers have looked for a relationship between habitual saturated fat intake and blood cholesterol, it has been very small or nonexistent.
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Stephane Guyenet said:
Overall, the literature does not offer much support for the idea that long term saturated fat intake has a significant effect on the concentration of blood cholesterol in humans. If it's a factor at all, it must be rather weak. It may be that the diet-heart hypothesis rests in part on an over-reliance on the results of short-term controlled feeding studies.
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http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2 ... rease.html
 
Unfortunately I don't have a Kindle but the reviews on Amazon do look promising, any way of reducing cholesterol by dietary means has to get the big :thumbup:
 
Below is a video combining the audio of my talk with my slide presentation. It’s about an hour long. But as Bastiat essentially said, if you want to overturn half-truths, you can’t do it with bumper stickers. Hopefully you’ll find this talk informative and useful for your dinner party discussions.
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http://vimeo.com/45485034




Peter Attia, M.D., is the co-founder and President of the Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI), based in San Diego, CA. He received his B.Sc. from Queen's University in Canada and his M.D. from Stanford Medical School in California. After his surgical residency in general surgery at Johns Hopkins he worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company. He founded NuSI with scientific journalist Gary Taubes in 2012.
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While you can make a case that prescribing statins reduces death from heart disease (some people may get loads of nasty side effects but that's a different thing) then that is not the same as assuming that having a low cholesterol level reduces your chance of death from heart disease. The Hunt 2 study that looked at the cholesterol levels of 50000+ people who died over a ten year period in Norway actually showed that for men the best level to aim for is around 5.5 as below that level your "all cause" risk of death actually increases and for women the "all cause" risk of death actually increases as cholesterol levels drop!

That 50000+ sample size is actually slightly larger than all the studies N.I.C.E combined to come to the conclusion that prescribing statins is a good thing.

Here's the study

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21951982

and the relevant chart.
 

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Chalcedony said "In the contemporary world today, all of us are at high risk for heart diseases because of soaring levels of cholesterol in our blood. "

As a non diabetic, that may be your main concern. As a diabetic, which is what this forum is about, my main concern regarding heart disease is about high blood sugar levels - PROVEN to cause heart disease. So to control that, I have less carbs and more fat. Result? Both BGs AND cholesterol go down. But even if my cholesterol levels went UP, I'd take that as a swap for high BGs. Our new DIABETIC members need to concentrate on controlling BGs, not cholesterol, and that's where our advice should be directed.
 
It is not the high fat that give us high cholesterol, it is the high fact mixed with the carbs.
I did a 2 week Dr atkins diet and ate all the fat I wanted , cream butter eggs cheese etc and virtually no carbs. In 2 weeks my cholesterol dropped from 6.4 to 5.4 It did however, give me a wicked gallbladder attack.
No question whatsoever, if you eat mostly protein, green veg, tomato etc and very little high carb (most root veg have a bit much carb) and perhaps 2 slices of high grain bread (in NZ we get one called Vogels) you will keep your blood sugar from going thru the roof.
Just watch the cheese, butter and cream , not too much. I dont always practice what I preach but I seem to keep it OK
Anne
 
Have a shifty at the portfolio diet which seems to have quite a good evidence base and is validated by heart related mainstream medical orgs. You need to like nuts tho as there's a fair few almonds involved! (although you can use others if you don't like almonds / almond butter)
 
One of the herbs I take is fenugreek. It is known not only to help lower blood sugar but also lower bad cholesterol and triglycerides.
 
Thank you all for your advice, very helpful. Just been to sainsbury and it took me ages reading the labels but I have bought loads of veg and salad. Have to keep a food diary for a week to take back to the diabetic course next Tuesday. Looking forward to some suggestions for exciting recipes. No easter eggs this year!!!!
 
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