Cholesterol: The Essential Guide

By Sara Kirkham

Cholesterol – The Essential Guide is the ultimate guide to help you manage your cholesterol levels and reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease. Discover what you really need to do to decrease levels of oxidized cholesterol and maintain a healthy cardiovascular system using everyday foods and lifestyle adaptations.
Learn how changi

• Language: English
• Publisher: BXPLANS.LTD
• Release date: Jul 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9781910843734

Book preview

Published in Great Britain in 2018 by

Remus House

Coltsfoot Drive

Peterborough

PE2 9BF

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www.need2knowbooks.co.uk

All Rights Reserved

© Need2Know

SB ISBN 978-1-91084-372-7

SB ISBN 978-1-91084-373-4 (e-book)

Cover photograph: Dreamstime

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Cholesterol – the basics

Where does cholesterol come from?

Cholesterol in foods

How much cholesterol should I be eating?

Why we need cholesterol

Different ‘types’ of cholesterol and blood lipids

Cholesterol testing

What should your cholesterol levels be?

The importance of HDL: LDL balance

Triglyceride:HDL ratio

Summing Up

Chapter 2: Dyslipidaemia, cholesterol and your health

What causes high LDL cholesterol levels?

Familial hypercholesterolaemia (Primary dyslipidaemia)

Dyslipidaemia

How does cholesterol increase the risk of cardiovascular disease?

Oxidized LDL

Plaque formation

What’s the link with cardiovascular disease?

So do high cholesterol levels contribute to cardiovascular disease?

Summing Up

Chapter 3: How dietary fats affect cholesterol and health

What does research on fat intake and cholesterol levels show?

What about coconut oil?

Moderating your fat intake based upon the evidence

Unsaturated fats

Total fat intake

The structure of fats and how they contribute to heart disease

Polyunsaturated fat

Monounsaturated fat

Hydrogenated fats

Trans fats

Proportions of fats in foods

A note on fatty acid length

How to adjust your dietary fat intake for cardiovascular health

Other ways to eat healthier fats

Summing Up

Chapter 4: A diet to lower cholesterol levels and the risk of cardiovascular disease

Eating more fibre

Inulin fibre

Phytosterols

Carbohydrate consumption and central obesity

Eating a low GI diet

Does the amount or type of protein in my diet affect my cholesterol?

What type of protein should you eat?

Consume foods rich in anti-oxidants

Reduced carbohydrate diets improve cholesterol metabolism

Other dietary factors that can affect your cholesterol levels

Cooking tips to reduce cholesterol

Summing Up

Chapter 5: Phytosterol therapy to lower cholesterol

Do phytosterols reduce cholesterol?

How do phytosterols work?

Important facts about phytosterols

How much will I need to consume to make a difference?

A down side to phytosterol-enriched foods

Summing Up

Chapter 6: Supplements to lower cholesterol

Phytosterols and fibre

Plant sterols and stanols

Soluble fibres

Soya supplementation

Anti-oxidants

Vitamin E

Vitamin C

Co-Enzyme Q10 (CoQ10)

Other supplements

A note on supplementation

Summing Up

Chapter 7: Statins and other cholesterol medication

Why is cholesterol medication so readily prescribed?

What is a healthy cholesterol level?

Can cholesterol be too low?

Types of cholesterol-lowering medication

Interactions with other substances

When to avoid statins

Do statins work?

Increased risk of Type 2 diabetes

Non-statin cholesterol medication

Other medications for cholesterol

Interactions with other substances

Should you be taking cholesterol-lowering drugs?

Summing Up

Chapter 8: Lifestyle habits that affect your cholesterol levels...

How exercise affects cholesterol levels

Benefits of regular exercise

Does regular exercise reduce LDL and/or risk of cardiovascular disease?

Ways to do more exercise

Dissociation

Fitting more activity into your life

Reducing body weight reduces your cardiovascular risk

Alcohol and cholesterol

Smoking and cholesterol

Stress and cholesterol

Reducing stress and dealing with stress

A final note on creating your personal healthy cholesterol plan

Appendix A

Therapeutic diet to reduce cholesterol

Appendix B

Recipes

Banana and egg pancake

Kedgeree

Lentil and tomato soup / lentil and vegetable soup

Salmon and sweet potato risotto

Kale stir fry

Mixed bean chilli

Sweet potato and chickpea curry

Stuffed peppers

Seared tuna steak with stir fry vegetables

Help List

Book list

References

Glossary

Introduction

For over fifty years, dietary recommendations to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) have focused on reducing saturated fat intake, with additional recommendations to also limit dietary cholesterol intake. Despite this, 160,000 people die from heart and circulatory disease in the UK every year ( HeartUK.org , 2018), and some research suggests that there is no connection between the intake of saturated fat and heart disease. More recent research has found that other aspects of our diet are more likely to have an adverse effect upon the risk of cardiovascular disease.

This book provides the ground-breaking truth about cholesterol. Although cholesterol does play a role in increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease, it is not because of the amount of cholesterol you eat, nor related to the amount of cholesterol circulating in your blood stream. This book explores the role that oxidised cholesterol and certain types of lipoproteins appear to play in the development of cardiovascular disease, and the increasing evidence that points to causative factors other than the fats that we eat and the amount of cholesterol in your blood.

If you are one of six million people in the UK taking statins to lower cholesterol, you need to read this book. The effects of statins and how they really work is discussed, but you can also discover other effective options such as phytosterol therapy and lifestyle adaptations that can lower cholesterol levels or create a more favorable cholesterol ratio. You’ll not only discover the facts about cholesterol, but also learn how different foods, lifestyle interventions and medications affect your cholesterol metabolism. A wealth of practical, simple tips enabling you to adapt your diet and lifestyle will help you to improve and manage your cholesterol levels and reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease. It is estimated that replacing 5% of energy from saturated fatty acids with polyunsaturated fatty acids reduces the risk of developing CVD by 10%, and research suggests that a 1mmol/l reduction in LDL cholesterol could decrease the risk of death from cardiovascular disease by as much as 28% (British Nutrition Foundation, 2018), so it’s worth taking control of your own health and making changes that will really make a difference to your health and longevity.

Cholesterol – The Essential Guide tells you everything you need to know about cholesterol:

What cholesterol is

What your cholesterol levels should be – with and without other CVD risk factors

The different types of cholesterol – dietary and hepatic, good (HDL) and bad (LDL)

Why lipoprotein particles are what we should really be measuring

Which foods contain cholesterol – and why this isn’t as important as you might think

How cholesterol circulates in the blood stream, and why this is important

What causes high cholesterol, how you can reduce it – and whether you need to reduce it

What foods you really need to cut down on

The facts about coconut oil, olive oil and other types of dietary fat

Everything you need to know about cholesterol medication

Lifestyle and natural supplement options to help manage cholesterol metabolism and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Find out the real causes of cardiovascular disease and dysfunctional cholesterol metabolism – and discover what you can do to help yourself. This book is an absolute must-read for just about everyone!

‘Let food be your medicine, and medicine be your food’

Hippocrates AD390

1

Cholesterol – the basics

Cholesterol is a type of fat found in animals and humans. It is one of the types of blood lipid (fat) that circulates in our blood stream – the other type is called triglycerides. If you have a high level of lipids in your blood – known as hyperlipidemia – this can increase your risk of having a heart attack or stroke. However, although we tend to think of cholesterol as a harmful substance, we do need it for good health, and a lack of cholesterol can be just as unhealthy as too much.

Where does cholesterol come from?

The cholesterol in our bloodstream comes from two sources...

Cholesterol we consume when we eat foods such as egg yolks or liver (also called exogenous or dietary cholesterol)

Cholesterol that our liver makes (also called hepatic, biliary or endogenous cholesterol).

Actually, the majority of the cholesterol in your body is made by the liver, and the amount of cholesterol consumed has been shown to have little effect upon blood cholesterol levels in most people. If you eat more cholesterol-rich foods, your liver should make less to balance out the total amount of cholesterol within the body, and if you follow a low cholesterol diet, your liver should make enough cholesterol for your bodily needs. In some individuals, however, blood cholesterol levels do rise and fall in relation to the amount of cholesterol eaten.

The cholesterol in our diet only provides approximately 20-30% of our body’s cholesterol – we make the rest ourselves in the liver and intestines. The liver makes approximately ten times the amount of cholesterol that is recommended as a dietary intake. Some of the cholesterol made in the liver is excreted in bile, which is squirted into the intestines during digestion (this is called biliary cholesterol), and may be either absorbed back into the blood stream, or excreted in the faeces. Up to 80% of the cholesterol in our body is biosynthesized in the liver and secreted into the blood stream.

‘The consumption of saturated fat and trans fats have a much larger impact on raising ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol levels than the intake of dietary cholesterol’.

British Nutrition Foundation, 2018.

Cholesterol in foods

Cholesterol is found in many foods, but is richest in animal produce such as meat, eggs, dairy produce and shellfish. Fruit, vegetables, beans, nuts and cereals do not contain cholesterol. The table below shows typical cholesterol levels in common foods. Note the highest values for meats, fish roe, prawns and egg yolk, and the differing cholesterol content between full fat and reduced fat dairy produce.