Can we talk about our cholesterol?

Mine has been too high for a number of years and my dr suggests I go plant-based. Barring that, what do you eat - or avoid - if your cholesterol is high?

Thanks

After mr bliss's heart attack, estimating his total cholesterol was about 200, he went plant based and lowered it to 126 and his ldl to 76.

What can you eat? Vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes and lentils, nuts and seeds. There are 1000's of long term studies showing this kind of a diet supports health and not disease in many of the blue zones, where people lived longer productive lives. Blue zone populations did not have high cholesterol or the chronic diseases that come with it.

Every meal is a chance to support your health or support disease.
it's a stretch for most people to give up processed premade foods and restaurant food but there are great health benefits from it.

Do what you think is best for you. no one will care about your health unless you do.

IMO your PCP is giving you good advice but it’s very difficult to change the habits of a lifetime.

Avoid eating foods that used to breathe or have feet.

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good just work towards making small sustainable changes in your diet that include the following.



Also, talk to your PCP about medications that help control cholesterol and prevent/slow heart disease.

There is a genetic side to cholesterol. Mine is higher than it should be. But, so was my dad's -- he died at age 91. So is my mom's, who is currently 90.

Also, ask your PCP to refer you to a specialist. PCPs are not qualified to diagnose and treat much beyond a head cold. When I asked my PCP at the time to send me to a specialist when I felt a growth that worried me, he laughed and told me I had a minor infection, and prescribed antibiotics. I had cancer. My PCP almost killed me.

CD

along with what @caseydog said, depending on any risk factors you or your doctor may be concerned about, you can choose the right specialist.
Cardiologists will generally give medications and do procedures. if diet is your focus (diet is the most impactful to heart disease) you may want to find a functional medical doctor or osteopath if they are educated in nutrition, or a nutritionist or dietician. Most doctors (90%) have only received 20 hours of coursework in nutrition which is not very much. That includes cardiologists.
Having a professional you can partner with about your health can be helpful. You can also educate yourself about diet and nutrition through coursework, books, the internet, and reading studies. Aligning yourself with people that support your health objectives will help long term and socially.
Facebook GROUPS for instance has groups that share information and answer questions. For example: Dr Greger has a group, McDougall has a group, Forks Over Knives (what you eat/not surgery), there are literally thousands of support groups. If you join, ask questions, read, you can steer yourself into groups and more reading/learning material, that applies to your situation.
Type in ''lower cholesterol" in Facebook Groups and there are more than 100 groups on just that.

Heart disease is an inflammatory disease, minimize inflammation, there's no heart disease, period.

Ask Your PCP for a CAC (coronary artery calcium) test which measures the amount of calcium in certain arteries which is basically the end stage of that inflammatory process also known as arterial calcification and is a condition where calcium deposits form in the walls of the arteries and builds upon itself and where pieces can break off causing heart attacks and stroke. The calcium formation is seen as an attack and injury by the immune system which begins the inflammatory process and it's the years and decades of chronic inflammation that causes atherosclerosis.

As far as a cholesterol number for what is considered as high or low is pretty much a non sequitur and a persons triglycerides and HDL levels are 5X more predictable for heart disease and considering this pretty much dictates our C-reactive protein in our body, it comes as no surprise.

Of course reducing inflammation isn't exactly easy because many factors contribute to that state in the body but a few to be aware of are: Smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, lack of exercise, poor diet and UPF are generally to blame for this, high blood pressure, obesity especially the visceral fat type that surrounds the organs that leads to fatty liver, insulin resistance and eventually diabetes also industrial chemicals, air pollution and other environmental toxins.

Of course we're going to hear that it's meat, saturated fat and cholesterol that is the cause but please don't be mislead by this ideology and do some real scientific research and no, Netflix docudramas, don't count. The human body is mostly comprised of red meat, saturated fat and cholesterol, that's who we are and if there's some science that I haven't seen yet that says these factors are what's now killing everyone, I not aware of it. Imagine the nutrients that make us human are actually killing us, yeah, no.

I completely forgot about Facebook groups! Thank you!

The other thing to consider, and another reason to see a specialist, is that everyone is different. My maternal grandfather had a diet of meat and potatoes, with lot of butter. He was a chain smoker from the age of 14 until he had a heart attack in his 70s. He had emphysema until he died at age 84, of liver failure... and he didn't drink alcohol. Go figure.

Now, I am not suggesting anyone live his lifestyle, but there is no "one-size-fits-all" diet. My grandfather didn't ever belong to a gym, but did a lot of heavy physical exercise just to make a living. He looked great. Not an ounce of fat on his frame. All lean muscle.

I had a full cardiologist exam at 60, and passed with flying colors, even though my cholesterol and triglycerides are higher than they should be. My best friend's father and brothers had heart attacks in their fifties. He has to see a cardiologist twice a year, because of that genetic history.

My own practice is to eat small amounts of food throughout the day. I don't often eat big meals. As you have heard me say, I call it "grazing." That works for me. It's not for everyone. It is an omnivore diet, and varies according to what is available at the time. I eat a lot more veggies in the summer than in the winter, because I love fresh veggies, in season.


Shrimp, scallops and fresh veggies cooked in the Weber wok. Lean protein and veg. Love it!

Do I ever "pig out' on Chicken Fried Steak, mashed potatoes and fried okra covered with a cream gravy? Yes... about two or three times in a year.

I also do my best to maintain a weight or 175 pounds. I am 5 foot 11 inches tall. That's a reasonable weight for me. I've been as high as 195 pounds, and I felt like sh*t at that weight. My body tells me that 175, plus or minus a couple of pounds, is where I should be, and my doctors agree.

CD

Yeah, if my cholesterol goes up, I completely cut out alcohol and all the fatty stuff. Exercise also really helps a lot. I love yoga, but I just don't have the patience to do it regularly.

Ok, thanks all.

Ok, lets talk about cholesterol. I suspect that it's to do with someones susceptibility for heart disease (atherosclerosis).

If cholesterol and especially LDL cholesterol was the cause of heart disease then we would see cholesterol damage throughout the entire circulatory system within the body but that isn't what's happening. There's not one case, not one, of atherosclerosis on the venus (veins) side of our circulatory system and atherosclerosis only happens on the arterial side. Basically that simple truth should and scientifically be the end the conversation of whether cholesterol causes heart disease by infiltrating the entire circulatory system and causing plaque build up.

The real question is why then does atherosclerosis only happen on the arterial side of the heart and predominantly at the Y junctions where the arteries branch off and not the venus side?

The blood that's pumped out of our left ventricle is under pressure every time the heart take a beat as I'm sure most are aware but the blood flow on the venus side is low pressure and just steady forward motion on it's journey back to the heart with additional valves that make sure the flow is strictly regulated for that flow which also gets reoxygenated by the respiratory system because it gets used mostly in the arterial side of the heart for function.

Ok so, I'll try to keep this as basic as I can

The heart take a beat, the oxygenated blood pumps out under a certain pressure, which can be and is measured. This action or pressure can damage the arterial walls and when someone's blood pressure is also high this adds to that result and why high blood pressure is one of the many a symptoms for atherosclerosis. Now we get into these Y junctions in those arteries that are close to the heart and think of them like you would a river where a tributary or a deviation is made from the main artery which normally ventures in another direction as well. So the main flow is not interrupted and continues on it's main path but the blood flow in the other vein which has deviated somewhat is disturbed and the flow creates these eddies and swirls around causing the blood to hang around longer which then create a turbulence which then also reduces the nitric oxide which helps keep vessels dilated and reduces inflammation basically causing some degree of Endothelial Dysfunction.

So now we have the beginning of an inflammatory process where the immune system will try and fix it but that can also exacerbate the situation. Anyway I'll just talk about diet here because there's many other factors that effect inflammation, see my above post. Sugar and UPF that are also high in refined carbs and sugar are the 900lb gorilla. High blood sugar increases the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) which attach the endothelial lining as well in forming advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) which actually stiffen and contribute to inflammation.

Basically what happens is all this preliminary inflammation causes dysfunction of our artery lining and create a problem for what are called "tight junctions" which basically are the spaces between each cell in our arterial lining. Tight junctions are crucial for maintaining the integrity of the endothelial barrier, which regulates the passage of molecules and cells between the bloodstream and surrounding tissues. Understanding the role of tight junctions and the impact of their compromise is crucial for developing treatments for various inflammatory and autoimmune diseases which include IBS, IBD and in the brain it can effect our blood brain barrier (BBB) and effect neurological function like dementia and Alzheimer's. Like I said previously inflammation is basically the cause of most western non communicable diseases including heart disease.

Anyway back to cholesterol in this process. After these tight junctions have been compromised by many different factors then the lipoproteins that carry cholesterol can and do get lodged in these tight junctions causing more inflammation.

Now we get to the the different sizes of these LDL lipoproteins, and there's basically for this arguement 2 different sizes. One being large and buoyant that actually are more floatable hense buoyant that are not seen as atherogenic as the small dense particles, dense meaning they sink and become less mobile and are more than likely to end up in our artery walls.

Like CD mentioned, everyone will be different and it really has to do with a persons life history and their own genetics, but one thing is certain someones cholesterol levels in the body is exactly where your particular metabolism needs it to be in order to deal with the dysfunction. As far as keeping these more prone LDL to circulate less then my advice would be again, only speaking dietarily is to consume whole foods and to keep refined carbs and added sugar to a bare minimum and again this also pertains to vegetarians and vegans as long as they understand that supplementation will be required, but a whole food diet is the least we can do for our heart health if you ask me, the 80/20 rule works pretty good. sorry I rambled on but i suspect some might have found this interesting.

Cholesterol is essential for maintaining these tight junctions and in try to help repair the problem they get lodged and increase that inflammation just by the accumulation that is encountered by that dysfunction, double edged sword kind of deal. But because cholesterol is always found in these circumstances they have been misinterpret as the cause of atherosclerosis, it made a great story fifty years ago and the cure was to consume 7-11 portions of grain a day and sugar has no cholesterol, so eat that too, how has that worked out so far.

What is the 80/20 rule in this context?

taxlady said:

What is the 80/20 rule in this context?

Click to expand...

Being or trying to be 100% compliant is a big ask and almost impossible to fulfill, so consuming mostly (80%) whole foods is achievable for most people that also have medical concerns where an intervention like that would help mitigate existing dysfunction.