Many of us will be aware that keeping an eye on cholesterol levels is important for our health. But one doctor has said 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.
High levels of cholesterol can lead to fatty deposits in the arteries, increasing the risk of heart attacks and strokes, reports Surrey Live.
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”.
Is all cholesterol bad?
There are different types of cholesterol, which can be good or bad.
Doctor Berry explains that low-density lipoproteins (LDL) cholesterol is bad for us but high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol is good.
She said: “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.”
This can cause what’s known as atherosclerosis, 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.”
Should I cut fat from my diet to lower cholesterol?
The expert explains that for every one millimole increase in LDL cholesterol, you increase your risk of cardiovascular disease over 10 years by about 25 per cent. But there are foods that can help lower your cholesterol, as well as foods that can make it worse.
She said: “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.”
While eating too much fat can increase cholesterol, the doctor warns people to not cut out fat entirely, unless you have been medically advised to do so by a professional.
She says she would “caution anyone to change to a low-fat diet because they have high cholesterol.”
She said it is all about eating the ‘right types of fat’.
She said: “I think that people should follow a moderate-fat diet, I don’t think people should go to a low-fat diet. I think what’s really important to say is it has to be from the right types of fat. It has to be from poly and monounsaturated fat sources, not from saturated fat sources.
“By increasing your intake of polyunsaturated fatty acids, you can reduce your LDL cholesterol. This is why evidence shows, again, from my own research, if you add nuts to someone’s diet, you can significantly reduce cholesterol by 5 to 10 per cent just by adding nuts into the diet.”
What fats are good and what ones are bad?
Saturated fat is bad for us and can come from a variety of processed foods.
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 a type of dietary fat that can help lower bad cholesterol and support heart health. They are found in many foods, including fish, nuts, and vegetable oils.
Praising polyunsaturated fats for having a “very potent effect on the LDL receptor”, she says “you’re going to reduce your LDL (bad) cholesterol quite significantly”.
In fact, she highlights that research consistently shows people following a high polyunsaturated fat diet can reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease by 10, 20, or even 30 per cent.
She also emphasises that increasing whole grain intake can help lower cholesterol, with fibre playing a crucial role in a heart-healthy diet.
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.
“We see a change in cholesterol after about 10 days when people are following a kind of diet that reduces cholesterol. Within two weeks, you see quite a big change. Within a month, you’ve seen a huge change.”
Doctor Berry concludes by saying if you go back to your GP a month later, you should see that it’s “significantly reduced your cholesterol.”
However, if this is not the case and it’s “still alarmingly high, that’s when I think you need to continue that discussion about statins”.