A doctor has shared ways you can lower levels without drug use
A medical professional has shared advice on how to reduce cholesterol levels without resorting to statins. The expert was responding to a patient who had difficulty tolerating the medication.
The patient asked: “I have high cholesterol, but when I tried statins, I didn’t like the side effects. What are non-pharmaceutical ways to lower my cholesterol?” The NHS explains that high cholesterol is an excess of a fatty substance called cholesterol in your blood.
It’s primarily caused by consuming fatty food, lack of exercise, being overweight, smoking, and drinking alcohol, and it can also be hereditary. The health service advises that you can decrease your cholesterol by eating a healthy diet and increasing physical activity.
Some people may also need to take medication such as statins. The NHS further adds: “Too much cholesterol can block your blood vessels. It makes you more likely to have heart problems or a stroke. High cholesterol does not usually cause symptoms. You can only find out if you have it from a blood test.”
As alternatives to medication, Dr Frank Hu, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, suggested lifestyle changes people could make before turning to statins, in an interview with the New York Times.
Dr Hu stated: ” When we exercise, HDL cholesterol is released into the bloodstream, where it sweeps up fatty plaque deposits in the blood vessels and transports them to the liver for disposal.”
Dr Roberto Lobelo, a cardiac expert, has advised: “The AHA (American Heart Association) recommends that all adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise, or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise, per week. That can include walking, swimming, lifting weights, dancing or whatever else you enjoy and can do without injury.
“The key is to ensure that your heart rate is elevated enough. If you’re struggling to keep up your end of a conversation while you’re exercising, that’s how you know you’re working hard enough.”
Diet also plays a crucial role in maintaining heart health, with experts recommending the portfolio diet. This includes soy products like tofu and other plant-based proteins like beans, lentils and chickpeas; viscous-fibre-containing foods like oats, barley, psyllium husk, berries, apples, and citrus fruits; nuts and seeds; avocado; and healthy plant-based oils like canola oil and olive oil – can help lower cholesterol, said Andrea Glenn, a nutrition researcher at New York University.
In a review of seven clinical trials involving about 440 participants with high cholesterol levels who didn’t require medication, researchers found that the portfolio diet helped reduce their LDL cholesterol by up to 30 per cent. That’s about as effective as the older versions of statin drugs that were widely used in the ’90s, Dr. Glenn said.
Dr Glenn and her colleagues tracked approximately 210,000 U.S. adults for about 30 years in a study published in 2023. They discovered that those who closely adhered to this diet had a 14 per cent lower risk of cardiovascular disease than those who consumed less of these foods, Dr Glenn explained.
The portfolio diet is effective because it combines various types of foods and nutrients that help reduce cholesterol in different ways, she said. Plant proteins like beans, chickpeas and soy products, for instance, can inhibit the production of apolipoprotein B, which normally aids your body in absorbing cholesterol from foods. Viscous fibre traps or binds cholesterol in the intestines, making it harder to absorb.
And nuts are good sources of unsaturated fatty acids, plant sterols and fibre, which can all lower LDL cholesterol levels. Even adding or replacing a few foods – like adding nuts to your morning granola or swapping red meat with chickpeas or tofu – can help improve your cholesterol, Dr Glenn said.
“There’s certainly no magic bullet,” Dr Hu stated. But diet, exercise and other healthy habits can go a long way in helping to lower cholesterol.
He said: “We have to think about it from a holistic point of view.”