Cholestorol - lowering

[Welshbeef]

What is the usual route to reduce your cholestorol?

We make most of our meals from scratch, lean meat, easily have 5+ fruit & veg a day. I do have a taste for beer but usually once a week and say between 4-8 cans/bottles of beer or a bottle of wine.
Dont really exercise though...

[Timmy33]

Replace the 'meat' with fish, preferably oily fish...makeral, tuna, swordfish etc. Which actually helps reduce collesterol.

Oh and use olive oil, not butter/margerine.

Plenty of tomatoes in the diet helps too IIRC.

[lunarscope]

I have fairly high cholesterol and was given a 'diet sheet' by my Doctor.
This diet is totally impractical for a normal busy working person to follow and I told my Doctor that I wouldn't be following it.
(To follow it you would need a personal chef to prepare all meals).

She agree and said that a change of diet would have very little effect on cholesterol anyway, maybe lowering it from current 7.6 to 6 and I would still have to take statins to lower it to a good level. So I opted to just eat a bit more sensibly (no more ready meals, limited eggs) and rely mainly on the tablets.
I also have resistant very high blood pressure so am at risk of a stroke at the age of 42. (High pressure could loosen cholesterol off arterial walls causing nasty bits to become lodged in my noggin).

[Welshbeef]

Timmy33 said:

Replace the 'meat' with fish, preferably oily fish...makeral, tuna, swordfish etc. Which actually helps reduce collesterol.

Oh and use olive oil, not butter/margerine.

Plenty of tomatoes in the diet helps too IIRC.

I do eat of lot of Tomatoes - grow them in the garden too and am often just picking some off.

Hmmm Fish... I like prawns, Cod Haddock (all breaded) not that keen on non smoked fish.

The Mrs has a few times made Kedjeree - sort of Indian Fish curry but its a dry dish.

Ive never had fish in a resteraunt...

Tuna - I could do that, I remember when at uni I went for 3 weeks and just ate Tuna for every meal. 3-4 Cans of it a day & I ate it out of the can..... & it was Kwik Save "No Frills" Tuna in Brine... so a weeks worth of meals cost barely £5!!!

[Timmy33]

Tuna steak, swordfish steak and almost the same as red meat if cooked rare, look at some of rubber faced Jamie Olivers recipies.

Whole grilled makeral, sardines, all good. Good for the bones too if you munch up the small bones in whole sardines.

[Welshbeef]

Timmy33 said:

Tuna steak, swordfish steak and almost the same as red meat if cooked rare, look at some of rubber faced Jamie Olivers recipies.

Whole grilled makeral, sardines, all good. Good for the bones too if you munch up the small bones in whole sardines.

The thing is with Fish the Mrs hates it - Ive tried to get her to have fish once a week & most often that turns out to be twice a month... And she really hates it - unless its breaded.
I'd happily eat anything - but would rather some pleasure in the taste/get used to it I suppose. I couldnt eat cockels/oysters/Muscels couldnt handle it.

I have tried lobster once and found it really nice - but far too price as a regular meal unless I find that Apprentice who priced them up for £4.99 a whole lobster lol.

[Thudd]

Eggs are bad IIRC.

[Timmy33]

Welshbeef said:

The thing is with Fish the Mrs hates it - Ive tried to get her to have fish once a week & most often that turns out to be twice a month... And she really hates it - unless its breaded.

Well then chicken is the next best bet, and if you can believe it Ostrich. I love my red meat believe me, but it is full of the 'bad' kind of collesterol that blocks up your tubes.

And I grew up on a beef/sheep farm, so I'm not anti-red meat in any 'phylosophical' way. Quite the reverse.

[Welshbeef]

swerni said:

for the most part it's hereditary.
if you already have a healthy diet then there is not a great deal you can do.

What is interesting is the cholesterol levels that we are being told are healthy have been coming down over the years.
I was told by a doctor that this comes from the US and the main reason is so more cholesterol reducing products can be sold.

having said that he was South African and believed people who ate chicken were veggies

I cannot remember the last take away we had... - certainly not the year thats for sure. Oh hold on Rugby 6 nations Feb/Mar08 Chippy alley (a few drunken/smashed visits).

Meals out - well so far this year I'd say maybe 5 meals at the most. 3 were at an award winning curry house the others at quality cottage grills.

Exercise... well we have a Wii & Wii Fit. Rowing maching gathering dust following a vigerous 6 weeks use when new.

[westy04]

I lowered my cholesterol from 6.8 down to 4.8 by the following:

Cut the fat from chops etc
Only use olive oil when cooking
Weight Watchers crisps only (no Walkers etc)
More fish in diet (Prawns are high in cholesterol by the way)
Loads of seeds between meals if peckish
Only one curry a month (used to have one a week)
No fish and chips
Lots of fruit (Blueberries a must)
Drink green tea
And use the following products dailey.

Flora Proactive Yogurt drink
Flora Proactive on BROWN bread
Optiva sereal(with berries)

Edited because I'm useless at spelling by westy04 on Thursday 3rd July 12:05

Edited by westy04 on Thursday 3rd July 12:05

[shadowninja]

Note: it's not olive oil but extra virgin olive oil you need to use.

Apparently oats is good for reducing cholesterol so try porridge for breakfast instead of a fry-up.

[Timmy33]

shadowninja said:

Note: it's not olive oil but extra virgin olive oil you need to use.

Well who the fk would buy any other grade than extra-virgin? It would be like p**sing in your petrol tank.

[dickymint]

After heart attack my CL was 9.2, now take statins and it's now always below 5. No matter what I eat or drink.

[becksW]

My Dad improved his by cutting down on the alcohol, using olive oil marg and cutting out a lot of cheese and using statins.

He was already active due to the type of job he does so exercise wasn't really something he could increase.

Activity makes a difference he ended up off work for a couple of months due to an injury, his cholestrol started to creep up (even though his diet didn't alter much). It's already improved since being back at work

[HiRich]

Pop into your surgery. There's a small free booklet by the British Heart Foundation that's very informative. Might actually read it again if I can find it.

[ray_von]

As Swerni says, if you already have a healthy diet, and yours doesn't look too bad, you may only get it down with statins.
How high is yours?
If your G.P is like mine, i.e. useless, get them to send you to a specialist to sort you out.

[schmokin1]

eat a heaped table spoon full of tomato puree every day - study featured on the box a few months back showed a significant effect on blood lipid profile (balance of good to bad cholesterol)

[Yugguy]

garlic, oats, olive oil, benecol.

[Chainguy]

It could be worse. Despite having a good diet, going weeks at a time without alcohol etc, I had a cholesterol check a pair of years ago, and it came back as...

19.7

Turns out I have a genetic predisposition to hyper cholesterol.

I now take 40mg of Rosuvastatin per day. Thats got it down to 6.7.

Nearly lost my class 1 Aviation medical over it.

It does explain why a lot of my family (2 cousins, uncle etc) have all died before the age of 40 with heart attack/stroke etc in recent years.

Ah well. Onwards and upwards.

[Welshbeef]

Yugguy said:

garlic, oats, olive oil, benecol.

We have lots of garlic - use it with most meals, olive oil - yes use that always to fry anything - i.e. onions/mushrooms. Never have any fried bacon/burgers/sausages everything like that is grilled.

I have the odd olive here & there but Im not keen on overly salty ones.

Benecol - will look into it.

Oh and its 6.5 BTW for a 29yo.