If your doctor is concerned about your cholesterol levels sooner or later he will recommend you start taking statins. Unfortunately statins are not a safe medication. As many as 40% of people experience side effects with statins (including memory loss) and they have been shown to be mostly ineffective in preventing heart attacks in people who have not already had heart attacks. So why do doctors prescribe so many statins? I don't know and I am not going to dwell on that.
There are dietary ways to help your body manage its cholesterol better. We manufacture cholesterol from the fats we ingest. Cholesterol is used by the body for several important functions, including manufacturing vitamin D. And though you might think you could change this by taking vitamin D supplements it's not that simple.
The body stores cholesterol it does not need in the walls of our arteries. If you can reduce your body's cholesterol production the stored cholesterol will eventually be used up or flushed out of the body (in healthy people).
It is because cholesterol is so hard to manage that low-fat diets became popular over the past few decades. But low-fat dieting is not necessarily healthy for you. We need some fat in our diets, and many low-fat foods substitute a lot of sugar for the fat. Too much sugar is not good for you, either.
A new study has produced evidence that the Type II Diabetes drug Metformin may help to lower cholesterol levels in the blood. If you're not yet diabetic you might want to talk to your doctor about trying Metformin. But Metformin is not exactly a safe medicine either. In a small percentage of patients Metformin produces a condition called Lactate Acidosis. This is a potential deadly side effect of the medicine that causes diarrhea and other symptoms. If you don't stay sufficiently hydrated you will die.
Here are two ways you can lower your cholesterol through your diet.
First, eat more foods such as nuts (almonds and walnuts are good), soy-protein, and oats. You can enjoy oatmeal and oat-based breads without all the milk and butter that some people like.
Also, eat lots of green leafy vegetables. The darker lettuce types are much better for you than normal ice berg lettuce but you should eat kale, basil, and if you can tolerate it spinach. These are also high protein foods, by the way.
Second, think about taking a fiber supplement. Psyllium is highly recommended. What it does is absorb fat in your intestine before it can be taken up into the bloodstream. That has a laxative effect on your body so you want to follow the directions and test how much you can tolerate it.
A teaspoon of psyllium in a large glass of water can help you feel full, too. By taking the Psyllium just before or after a meal you won't want to eat as much food as you normally would. But be careful to make sure you mix the powder into plenty of water. If you don't use enough you can choke on it.
Psyllium has an earthy taste but it is not really unpleasant. It's just plant fiber.
Other Ways to Lower Your Cholesterol
Have you heard of Fred Kummerow? He is a 100-year-old scientist who has led the world in research into the dangers of lipids (fats) and cholesterol. Kummerow has preached against the dangers of ingesting oxysterols for years.
What is an oxysterol? It's a fat that has been refried and refried. You're not likely to eat oxysterols in home-cooked food unless you leave a pan full of frying grease on the stove for days on end. The greatest source of oxysterols in our diet is fast food.
Nearly all restaurants that serve fried foods use deep fryers that reuse the same grease over and over again. Deep fryers now even have recycling systems that clean the grease. The longer that grease has been in use the more unhealthy the food that is cooked in it becomes.
You may be thinking, "But they are using vegetable oils" but that doesn't matter. All the healthy goodness of vegetable oils versus lard eventually goes away because the cooking oil is used over and over again.
So the most important thing you can do for your health is to stop eating fried foods from restaurants. I know you love them but they are literally killing you.
You also want to lower your triglycerides. According to the Mayo Clinic triglycerides are the fats that your body uses to store excess energy. In other words, when you eat too much food your body stores the food you don't need for energy right away as triglycerides in your fat cells.
When you need to manage your cholesterol levels your triglycerides are too high -- you have too much stored fat in your body. By lowering your triglycerides you give your body less fat to use in making cholesterol.
One way to lower your triglycerides is to eat less or to eat lower-calorie foods. Avoiding foods rich in fat and sugar helps a great deal but you'll want to reduce the portion sizes you eat.
Even if you eat out at a nice restaurant you should think about taking home about half your meal instead of trying to eat it all at the restaurant.
Another way to lower your triglycerides is to walk for 15-20 minutes after every meal. Your body will store less fat that way.
In fact, doctors want us to walk for at least 2 hours every day. If you just get up and walk around at work for 5 minutes every hour you can easily get in 40 minutes of walking time every day. The other 80 minutes will have to come from other activities.
If you can take a ten-minute walking break every hour then you only need to find 40 minutes of walking time in the rest of your day. That is two 20-minute walks after meals.
Of course you can also lower your triglycerides by taking a fiber supplement because it will block you body's absorption of excess fat and sugar.
