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Cholesterol

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  • robininfl
    robininfl Posts: 1,137 Member
    Some people just have genetic high cholesterol but lifestyle factors you can control:

    Exercise - more exercise lowers cholesterol
    Eat good fats - High good cholesterol offsets the bad
    Lose body fat - less fat in your body, less cholesterol floating around
    Eat more fiber
    Eat less sugar

    If you are fat, simply losing weight may help a lot.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 31,954 Member
    edited June 2016
    SingingSingleTracker wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    SingingSingleTracker wrote: »
    Rmiss wrote: »
    Need to know what to do with my earing habits that's easy to understand to lower cholesterol. ..please explain mono and saturated fats...

    Lose weight. Any visceral fat contributes.

    Cinnamon every day. One apple with red skin every day. Carrots every day. Red beets every day. Fish Oil every day. Red Yeast every day. Oatmeal as often as possible. Red wine every day. Nuts every day. Garlic every day. Olive oil every day. Dark chocolate every day 72% minimum - 80's even better. Spinach every day. Avocado as often as possible. Beans every day. Black or green tea every day. Salmon of fatty fish every day.

    Get as much of those in your daily diet and you will be golden.

    Trust me.

    FWIW, I was doing much of what you suggest dietarily when I was fat, but subbing algae DHA for fish oil because I'm veg (ovo lacto). I was also very active (rowing, spin classes, more). Minor improvement in chol/tris at best. (I was trying to avoid a statin.)

    Losing 60+ pounds? Result from Nov 2015 compared to Dec 2014 (in parentheses):

    Cholesterol: 176 (230)
    Triglycerides: 82 (193)
    HDL: 65 (45)
    LDL: 95 (146)
    VLDL: 16 (39)
    Chol/HDL ratio: 2.7 (5.1)

    Those with genetic susceptibilities or metabolic complications may differ, but weight loss worked pretty well for me. No one's talking statins anymore. Still eating the good stuff, too, because it's what I like.

    Congrats on getting your numbers down and being statin free. I've been statin free for 2 years now.

    Notice the first sentence that I have highlighted in bold up above which was my 1st - and most important - suggestion to Rmiss.

    Lose weight. Any visceral fat contributes.


    Yes! Meant to be supporting, not disputing, you.

    Just coming at it from the opposite angle: OP's phrasing made me concerned that she was looking for a dietary-composition solution - something I tried hard at for quite some time. But losing weight, as per your main suggestion, was way more effective, at least for me.

    (edited to fix messed-up quotes. sigh.)
  • Crisseyda
    Crisseyda Posts: 532 Member
    You could try alternate day fasting. Side note: the association of high HDL with heart health is much more powerful than the association of lower LDL levels with heart health.

    https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/fasting-lowers-cholesterol-fasting-16/
  • STEVE142142
    STEVE142142 Posts: 867 Member
    You really need to talk to a doctor or a dietitian. One of the things that you have to realize is that your genetics are going to determine a lot of your cholesterol levels. Yes, what you will help put your genetics are going to determine a lot of the numbers.

    Read an article one time in the New England Journal of Medicine. They monitored a town in new england for about 20 years to see the effects of diet on cholesterol. What the study found is that your genetics are going to determine it a lot. there were people who ate the worst things for them and they had low cholesterol levels and then they were people who were almost vegetarians who have high cholesterol levels. Also Eskimos who eat a lot of walrus fat and blubber have low cholesterol levels. Unfortunately as they become more modernized and started to eat normal food the cholesterol levels have increased.

    At one point I weighed close to 300 pounds. Yet when the doctor ran my yearly physicals my good cholesterol levels were perfect my bad cholesterol levels were perfect triglycerides were perfect. He used to scratch his head when he looked at my blood work made no sense at all. Yet I worked with guys who are skinny who have very high cholesterol levels and are on meds.

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