The easiest ways to lower cholesterol, according to science

Ask the average Joe on the street to name the easiest ways to lower cholesterol, and he’ll likely tell you to take eggs and fatty veal off your dinner table. He wouldn’t exactly be right or wrong, and you can’t really blame him.

Despite the abundance of nutritional information everywhere you look, there is still a lot of confusion about dietary cholesterol. And studies from the past 10 years showing that eggs for breakfast won’t kill you and that those devilish saturated fats don’t cause heart disease have further blurred the message.

If you Google “how to lower cholesterol”, for example, the most common advice is “cut back on saturated fat”. So, what gives? We will set the record straight. Here are the easiest and most surprising ways to lower your cholesterol. Read on and to learn more about healthy eating, don’t miss out on the 7 Healthiest Foods To Eat Right Now.

That’s it. Leave the fat on the heat for a while, and stop drinking soda, fruit drinks that contain high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), and sweet tea. Cut out refined carbohydrates like cookies, cakes, sugary cereals, and candy. This step is the easiest way to lower cholesterol because sugary foods and drinks are very easy to identify in your diet.

Plus, removing added sugars provides additional motivation to lose weight and better blood sugar (and hunger) control. (Psst: being overweight raises cholesterol.) On the flip side, a diet high in sugar does a number on your fat levels: a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that when people increased their intake of sugars, their HDL (“good”) cholesterol decreased and their triglycerides (blood fats linked to cardiovascular disease) increased. It’s a bad combo: Low HDL and high triglyceride levels increase the risk of heart disease.

But it’s getting worse. Here’s how: HDL gets the nickname “good” because its job is to carry “bad” cholesterol out of your arteries where it can damage your liver, where it is pushed out of the body. When your HDL cholesterol is low, more of the bad LDL cholesterol may be able to damage the artery walls. Interestingly, that JAMA study found that in women, high sugar intake was associated with high LDL as well as low HDL. Another study, a report from 2015 The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition linked consumption of HFCS-sweetened drinks with increased blood levels of triglycerides, LDL cholesterol and apolipoprotein B, a component of LDL that damages our arteries the most.

Bottom line: A combination of high LDL, high triglycerides, and low HDL resulting from a diet high in added sugars results in an unhealthy cholesterol profile. (Related: Top 7 Sneaky Sugar Culprits From ‘The 14 Day Sugar Free Diet’.)

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Trans fats are considered the worst type of fat for your heart because they raise LDL cholesterol levels. While some trans fats come from natural sources, trans fats created by the industrial process of injecting hydrogen into vegetable oils to make them solid at room temperature are found in margarine, canned cookies, crackers and more. bakery products. Because they are so unhealthy, the Food and Drug Administration has dramatically reduced the amount of trans fats allowed in packaged foods. Yet even if you see “0 trans fat” on Nutrition Facts labels (or “partially hydrogenated vegetable oil” in the ingredient list), there may be small amounts allowed in each serving, which can add up. if you eat a lot of food.

Eating lots of saturated fat, typically found in animal products, can raise your cholesterol, both good HDL and bad LDL, and increase inflammation, according to the Mayo Clinic. The National Institutes of Health’s National Cholesterol Education Program recommends that healthy adults limit their intake of saturated fat to less than 7% of total daily calories. And the American Heart Association continues to recommend reducing saturated fat in the diet despite studies showing no link between fat and heart disease. “The important question is” what are you replacing [saturated fat] with? Says nutritionist and exercise physiologist Chris Mohr, RD, PhD, a corporate wellness consultant with MohrResults.com.

Studies have shown that when people reduce their intake of saturated fat, they tend to replace it with refined carbohydrates and when this happens, there is no reduction in heart disease. “The key is to replace saturated fat with healthier fat sources like olive oil, canola oil, nuts, seeds, avocado,” Mohr says. In a 2019 Traffic research Review of meta-analyzes of studies exploring the Mediterranean diet (low in saturated fat, meats and dairy products and high in plants and monounsaturated fats), researchers determined that following the low saturated fat diet rich in fruits and vegetables and in olive oil was associated with significant reductions in coronary heart disease, stroke, and cardiovascular disease in general.

You’ve heard it a million times: Dietary fiber lowers cholesterol. But do you know the most important type when it comes to your blood fat? Soluble fiber directly reduces your low density lipoprotein (LDL). You get it from oatmeal, beans, barley, Brussels sprouts, flaxseeds, apples, and pears. Need more ideas? Check out these 20 easy ways to add fiber to your diet.

It might not be the easiest way to improve your cholesterol profile, but it works. Studies have shown that doing 30 minutes of aerobic exercise that increases your heart rate can lower bad cholesterol and increase good things. Exercise appears to have a greater effect on HDL cholesterol, the lipids that flush LDL clogging the arteries. And the most effective way to increase your HDL quotient seems to be to push yourself hard. What difficulty? Use high-intensity interval training, where you alternate between short periods of vigorous exercise and longer periods of easy exercise “rest”. In research reported in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, exercise improved HDL counts in young men who exercised at an intensity of 90% of maximum heart rate during HIIT workouts performed three times per week for eight weeks. (Related: This Four-Second Workout Actually Works, New Study Finds.)