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Food to help lower your cholesterol
Nutritional expert Susannah Olivier explains how to lower cholesterol levels by incorporating the right foods into your diet
Healthy cholesterol levels are important for reducing the risk of heart disease. Along with checking for high blood pressure, a family history of heart disease and smoking, your doctor is likely to check your blood cholesterol when assessing your cardiovascular risk.
Actually, not all cholesterol is 'bad' and we actually make the majority of cholesterol in our body where it is used to make hormones, vitamin D, and bile acids which aid digestion. But when there is an imbalance in the body between 'good' HDL and 'less-good' LDL then problems can occur.
A doctor will want to see a ratio of less than 4.2:1 total cholesterol to HDL, or less than 2.5:1 LDL to HDL. But even if your doctor is not checking your cholesterol, we can all benefit from eating healthily to maintain optimum cholesterol levels.
Certain foods have potent cholesterol-lowering effects when consumed regularly. It is not just a case of cutting out foods which raise cholesterol levels, particularly saturated fats from red meat and full-fat dairy products, but also increasing amounts of food which influence how cholesterol is absorbed and how the body handles it.
There are three main categories of foods that help to normalise cholesterol levels:
- Healthy fats which counter the effects of unhealthy fats
- Dietary fibres which, simply put, mop up cholesterol
- Antioxidants which stop cholesterol from oxidising
Luckily these foods are common foods, and delicious, and easy to incorporate into a varied diet! These are the main ones:
Oats
This grain is something of a cholesterol-lowering superfood. Beta-glucans, or soluble fibre, helps to bind with cholesterol thus reducing levels. It is even permitted by the FDA (Federal Drug Administration) in the USA for food manufacturers to make a health claim about oats lowering cholesterol. Eating an oat-rich breakfast cereal once daily, such as porridge oats, or eating oatcakes is an easy adjustment to make.
Oily fish
The omega-3 fatty acids found in fish have the ability to reduce LDL cholesterol while raising healthy HDL cholesterol, as well as reducing blood thickness and inflammation (all very important for improving heart disease risk). It is recommended that we eat two portions of fish weekly, of which at least one should be oily fish such as sardines, mackerel, salmon, sprats or fresh tuna. Plus, eating fish twice a week helps to reduce the amount of red meat and saturated fat in your diet which is linked to a worsening of cholesterol levels.
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