Monitoring cholesterol levels is crucial for your health. Poorly managed cholesterol levels can have serious implications to your health. High levels of cholesterol can increase your risk of heart disease.
A doctor maintains that it’s possible to lower you cholesterol in just 10 days, without having to cut fat completely from your diet. According to a professor from ZOE, co-founded by Tim Spector, “not all cholesterol is bad,” and you may not have to make any drastic changes to your diet to lower your levels, Daily Records reported.
Dr Sarah Berry is a leading expert in large-scale human nutritional studies and an associate professor in Nutrition at King’s College London, as well as ZOE’s chief scientist. She stresses that cholesterol is essential for our survival.
A common myth surrounding lowering cholesterol is to cut all fat from your diet. But the doctor deems this method “nonsense”.
In fact, she says that “following a healthy fat diet can actually improve your cholesterol”, whereas “following a high carbohydrate diet can actually make your cholesterol worse”.
She also explained that low-density lipoproteins (LDL) cholesterol is bad for us but high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol is good.
“The cholesterol that’s packaged in LDL is the cholesterol that is circulating in our blood and delivered to our peripheral tissues. It’s delivered along our arteries where it can be actually taken up into the arterial wall. The LDL particles have a particular label on them, which is called the apolipoprotein B label. So it’s got this address label that the receptors on the lining of our blood vessels recognise, that enables it to cross over into the lining of our blood vessels. It’s then taken up by the lining of the blood vessels,” She said as quoted by Daily Records.
According to Dr. Berry, this can cause atherosclerosis which is a narrowing of the arteries that makes it difficult for blood to flow through them. The doctor says this can cause “plaque formation” which “can then burst, and that’s when you get a blockage, which causes a heart attack.
She also revealed that there are foods that can help lower your cholesterol, as well as foods that can make it worse. “The single most potent effect that we can have is by increasing our dietary fat intake to increase the amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids that we include in our diet,” she said as quoted by Daily Records.
What are the right type of fats?
According to Dr. Berry, by increasing your intake of polyunsaturated fatty acids, you can reduce your LDL cholesterol. She emphasised that Instead of increasing your consumption of healthy fats, the doctor advises reducing your intake of foods high in saturated fats, and opting for polyunsaturated fats, while also including some monounsaturated fats.
Polyunsaturated fats are found in many foods, including fish, nuts, and vegetable oils. She also highlighted that research consistently shows people following a high polyunsaturated fat diet can reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease by 10, 20, or even 30 percent. She also emphasised that increasing whole grain intake can help lower cholesterol.
How can I lower my cholesterol in 10 days?
Urging people to look at their diet, stating “this is not a medical opinion” she says to consider:
- Increasing your polyunsaturated fat intake
- Increasing your fibre intake
- Reducing your refined carbohydrate intake
- Increasing the amount of legumes you’re eating
- She suggests to try and make these changes first and see what happens over the course of the next few weeks.
“Diet changes cholesterol really quickly,” she explained.