What are the natural ways to lower cholesterol? One of the best ways to naturally lower your cholesterol levels without prescription medication is through making modifications in your diet. The American Heart Association recommends lowering your saturated fat intake and replacing it with unsaturated fat.
This means eating less red meat, less butter, less high fat milk and minimizing coconut and palm oils. It also means eating less fried food and sugary baked goods. And replacing this with healthy fats such as fish, nuts, seeds, avocado, olive oil, extra virgin oil, etc.
What are the natural ways to lower cholesterol?
And Incorporating more fiber rich foods such as a variety of different fruits and vegetables. What most people don’t know is eating more fiber foods helps to pull cholesterol out of your GI tract. Some good fiber food options are beans, lentils, oatmeal, broccoli, spinach, etc.
Making Lifestyle Factor Changes
Quitting smoking has been shown to reduce bad cholesterol levels along with exercising. The American Heart Association and the CDC, The Center For Disease Control And Prevention recommends exercising at least 150 minutes a week which comes out to walking 30 minutes a day about 5 days a week.
When it comes to exercise moderate to high intensity, it can get your heart pumping and blood circulating while helping to lower your high cholesterol levels.
Let’s talk about the foods specifically that can help lower your cholesterol levels.
Such as soy products such as tofu, edamame beans, soy milk. There have been some studies that have shown that eating soy products can help reduce bad cholesterol levels which are your LDL levels and triglycerides. Eating nuts regularly has also been shown in studies to lower bad cholesterol and triglyceride levels.
Eating whole grain foods such as oats and barley is good because it is high in soluble fiber and it has beta glucan. And beta glucan has been shown to lower bad, (LDL) cholesterol levels.
Eating fruits and vegetables such as oranges, apples, bananas, grapes, peaches, spinach, asparagus, broccoli can help with reducing your cholesterol levels because of the soluble fiber content in it.
It has a high number of antioxidants which can help lower the risk of a lot of chronic health diseases such as stroke, heart disease and several types of cancers.
If you can make strong lifestyle factors change in your diet or exercise it can help tremendously with naturally lowering your cholesterol levels without having to go the prescription medication route.
The Bottom Line is some of the best natural ways to lower cholesterol levels through diet and exercise. Exercising at least 150 minutes a week, which would be walking a minimum of 30 minutes a day, about 5 days a week. And eating more fruits, vegetables, whole grains and eating less red meat and ultra-processed foods.
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References
- Food Standards Australia New Zealand. Systematic Review of the Evidence for a Relationship between Oats, Barley and their derived Beta-glucans on Blood Cholesterol Concentration.2015.
- EFSA Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA) Scientific Opinion on the substantiation of a health claim related to oat beta glucan and lowering blood cholesterol and reduced risk of (coronary) heart disease pursuant to Article 14 of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006. 2010.
- Wang X, Ouyang Y, Liu J et al. Fruit and vegetable consumption and mortality from all causes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer: systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. British Medical Journal. 2014;349:g4490.
- Aune D, Giovannucci E, Boffetta P et al. Fruit and vegetable intake and the risk of cardiovascular disease, total cancer and all-cause mortality – a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of prospective studies. International Journal of Epidemiology. 2017;46(3):1029-1056.
- Del Gobbo LC et al. Effects of tree nuts on blood lipids, apolipoproteins, and blood pressure: systematic review, meta-analysis, and dose-response of 61 controlled intervention trials. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2015. 102(6): 1347–1356.
- Benkhedda K et al. A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of the Effects of Soy Products on Blood Cholesterol Levels. Nutrition. 2015.
- Tokede OA et al. Soya products and serum lipids: a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. British Journal of Nutrition. 2015. 114:6;831-43.
