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Pritikin Longevity Center’s doctors and dieticians are here to help you significantly lower your LDL cholesterol levels with 6 dietary/lifestyle tips:
1. Limit your intake of saturated fats, trans fats, and dietary cholesterol foods
Butter, red meat, full-fat and low-fat dairy products, palm oil, and coconut oil are great sources of saturated fat. You can tell that food has trans fats by looking for partly hydrogenated fat in the ingredient list. On the other hand, egg yolks, organ meats, and shellfish are loaded with dietary cholesterol.
Omega-3 fatty acids in salmon, mackerel, halibut, trout, herring, and sardines has been shown to prevent heart disease.
Best Choice: Omega-3-rich fish, such as salmon, sardines, herring, mackerel, and trout, minimize twice a week. Choose very-low-sodium or no-salt-added if using canned fish.
Good Choice: Almost all other fishes, plus shelled mollusks (clams, oysters, mussels, scallops).
Satisfactory Choices: Shrimp, crab, lobster, crawfish), Poultry (white meat, skinless) Game Meat (bison, venison, elk, ostrich), optimally free-range and grass-fed
Poor Choice: For all red meat (beef, pork, lamb, veal, goat), buy cuts that are no more than 30% fat.
2. Eat a lot more fiber-rich foods
Top sources include oats, oat bran, barley, peas, yams, sweet potatoes and other potatoes, legumes or beans, such as pinto beans, and peas. Rich in solute fiber veggies are carrots, Brussels sprouts, beets, okra, and eggplant. Last but not least, fruit sources include berries, passion fruit, oranges, pears, apricots, nectarines, and apples.
3. Buy protein-rich plant foods over meat
Common legumes, for example, lentils, peas, and beans, such as pinto beans, red beans, white beans, and soybeans are full of nutritional riches and are a not only extremely healthy, protein-packed substitute to meat but also help reduce total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, blood sugar, and insulin levels, even lower cancer risk.
To avoid blood-pressure-raising salt, consume raw or dry-roasted, unsalted varieties. If you want to control weight, eat less than 1 ounce daily because nuts and seeds are high-density calories
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Lose as much excess weight as possible
Losing abundant weight is helpful for all sorts of reasons, from promoting your cholesterol profile to limiting diseases epidemic like type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, gout, and many types of cancer.
Bear in mind that you must also watch out even your “good” fats intake such as olive oil since any kind of fats are high-density calories.
5.Take plant sterol supplements
A daily consumption of 1 to 2 grams of plant sterols has been proven to lower LDL cholesterol levels. CholestOff (by Nature Made), for instance, is your best choice, because they don’t contain the calories, sugar, trans fats, and/or salt of many foods enriched with plant sterols.
6. Take psyllium (such as Metamucil)
Though Metamucil is the most popular brand, psyllium is also available in cheaper store brands. 9 to 10 grams daily of psyllium, the same amount of about 3 teaspoons daily of Sugar-Free Metamucil, reduced LDL levels, studies has proved. Consume 1 teaspoon with water no more than 15 to 30 minutes before a meal to max out the health benefits.