Eat Your Veggies and Lower Your Cholesterol

Most doctors respond to a patient with high cholesterol by prescribing one of the many statin drugs. Fewer and fewer doctors will even give diet and exercise a chance -- especially with the incentives many physicians receive for prescribing certain drugs.

As I sit here writing, a Lipitor commercial just played on the TV. They urge you to see your doctor and ask for Lipitor, claiming that diet and exercise may not be enough to lower your cholesterol.

However, a new study [click header to read the article] suggests that diet can be as effective as statin drugs in lowering cholesterol. The diet used in the study was "high in soy protein, almonds and cereal fiber as well as plant sterols -- tree-based compounds used in cholesterol-lowering margarines, salad dressing and other products." The results are good news, but the diet used in the study is biased by those who funded the research. (The Almond Board of California helped fund the study, as did several food makers and the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.)

I don't have a broad spectrum of individuals to prove my own diet recommendations, but I would propose a very different diet (and I would never suggest a diet high in soy protein). If you want to be healthy while you reduce your cholesterol, follow these suggestions:

1) Eat your veggies, especially broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, spinach, garlic, onions, and scallions. The more the better. Take an aged garlic supplement if the scent bothers you.
2) Eat a small bowl of oatmeal every morning, but do not add butter or sugar of any kind.
3) Do not eat fried foods. Period. No debate.
4) Limit red meat intake to lean cuts and 98% fat-free hamburger.
5) Eat fish, especially salmon, three to five times a week.
6) Take a fish oil or flax oil supplement -- up to 15 grams a day.
7) Use olive oil on salads or eat almonds and cashews daily.
8) Get three to five hours of cardiovascular exercise a week.
9) Eat no sugars of any kind, no bread with fewer than four grams of fiber per slice, and no baked goods. Avoid all simple carbohydrates.
10) Avoid trans-fatty acids at all costs. Read labels and do not eat anything with hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils.

If you follow all of these suggestions, exactly as written, you can reduce your cholesterol by as much as 150 points in three to four weeks. (One of my clients made this progress in three weeks, as well as losing 10 pounds and bringing down her resting glucose by nearly 200 points.)

Drugs are seldom the best approach. If your doctor won't discuss natural approaches, such as diet and exercise, find another doctor who doesn't think there is a magic pill for every problem.