Hi,
When an existing heart condition is present, or perhaps even if there is just a significant risk, an upper limit of 200/day is the go.
What happens if you restrict your diet to 0 choleseral intake? The body converts saturated fat to cholesteral, so it would likely jump on any saturated fat to do that, that may be in your diet. Cholesteral is important to your life - your body must have some or make some to survive.
It would also be almost impossible to adopt a zero level cholesteral diet, as many foods contain some amount of cholesteral and or saturated fat, including olive oil, fish oil and so on.
To answer your question about minimum cholesteral required for health, I don't know if that has been researched all that well, if at all.
Firstly, research would be flawed because, you see, we are only just starting to underdstand cholesteral and the interplays between certain foods and cholesteral. Some of those interplays with cholesteral currently make no sense, such as cheese not ellevating cholesteral by very much, even though it has much saturated fat and cholesteral in it. So we are not even at the point where we know the interplay betweeen food and cholesteral in any meaningful detailed manner, we have some basic information on cholesteral, but that's about it.
Secondly, the signs and symptoms of high cholesteral are normally seen years down the line. As it is not realistic to expect people to stay on such a cholesteral restricted diet for almost their entire life span, just to see the effect of no cholesteral or very low cholesteral, or anything else for that matter, research on minimum cholesteral will likely advance more haphazardly and in more round about ways. It would also be unethical to conduct this sort of cholesteral research, hence this would prevent the full scientific examination of the effect of zero cholesteral in a diet. Also, because saturated fat and cholesteral are so common through out the food chain, cross cultural studies would also have limited value.
I can say, however, that in all liklihood there exists a minimum required amount of cholesteral and or saturated fat that must be consumed for the human body to survive, but, we don't have precise meaningful figures, which I agree, is disappointing.
That was an enjoyable question on cholesterol. Thank you.
Donald.
By way of an update on this topic of low cholesterol, doctors, if you suffer from very low cholesterol, will look at your cholesterol profile and check the ratios of ld to hdl to total cholesterol. They believe that if the proportions of the different cholesterols to each other are fine, then there is essentially little to worry about. The problem with this type of cholesterol analysis, is that we do not appear to be sure about how such low cholesterol, will affect our overall health over many years. I suspect it may make us more prone to other illnesses, such as dementia, because the very low cholesterol suggests the diet is lacking in fat and fat is very important for brain function. Dementia may possibly result from there being insufficient fat in the diet to maintain the brain's needed fat deposits.
Thanking you
To find out the amount of saturated allowed, please use the Saturated fat calculator to work out the amount of saturated fat YOU are allowed on YOUR low cholesteral diet.
Rather than start with the cholesteral chart, it may be more beneficial to start with the low cholesteral sample diet , add in the relevant cholesteral information from the lower cholesteral naturally page, then use the cholesteral chart for the remainder of the foods not covered by their own food labels. Also, the Cholesteral diet page is a simple way to get started as well.
I know how frustrating and time consuming it is to get a cholesteral diet up and running - it's precious time, which may cost some their lives - hence the reason why I have developed, through my own experience with lowering cholesteral, ways to lower cholesteral quickly and straight forward.
Cannot guarantee any suggestions will work for you. Some people will require ongoing cholesteral medication and have to be on a low cholesteral diet as well.
Hope you can lower your cholesteral through diet - don't forget exercise - and be able to get off that cholesteral medication as well. On another note, have you thought about asking your doctor about other cholesteral medicines he might be able to prescribe that may not affect you so badly?
All the best,
Donald.
Greetings, I was wondering what you think about the benefits of citrus pectin powder on keeping blood vessels clean - free of cholesteral buildup. In relation to choleseral buildup, if it is possible to keep the vessels clean, what about the underlying problem of inflammation, etc. that causes plaque - cholesteral - buildup in the first place?
OK. This is a tough cholesteral question for me, as I was more concerned with staying alive, which meant finding out which foods would help with lowering my bad cholesteral and which wouldn't and which foods would be outright dangerous. So, firstly, I wasn't much aware of inflamation of the arteries and it certainly wasn't something my doctors mentioned either. So, my question would be: Is there such a thing as an inflamation of the arteries that causes cholesteral to build up on the artery walls? Pectin or citrus fibre reduces cholesteral plaque buildup in the arteries, again, knowing why wasn't the important issue for me, the important issue was to stay alive. So, that raises the second question: How does fibre help reduce cholesteral?
My understanding of cholesteral buildup in the arteries, is that it is due to an excess of bad cholesteral - cholesteral in excess of the bodies needs and which also is beyond the body's ability to place into the available fat cells for storage - which then hangs round in the blood. The more the cholesteral hangs round in the blood, the more likely it is to be deposited onto artery walls and so on. Inflamation is another variable that is being thrown into the equation of cholesteral buildup on artery walls. Artery Inflammation has been muted for some years as causing dementia with the need to possibly start intervention in childhood - due to oxidants in the blood damaging artery walls, which then leads to an inflammation response of the arteries and so on - so the hypothesis goes. As yet, what role artery inflammation has on cholesteral buildup is unclear from what I read about it - perhaps artery inflammation creates more bumps in the artery walls, or slightly decreases the width of the arteries, which might then lead to more cholesteral being deposited out of the blood onto the artery lining. If there is a connection between the cholesteral and artery inflammation, it may be some time before some definitive answers come out about the relationship and how they interact together, if at all. As stated on another of my cholesteral pages, our understanding of cholesteral is still in it's infancy.
Now to part two. How does soluable fibre lower cholesteral in the arteries and veins and so on? I don't think we know yet - but it does.
I saw your website and am impressed with the calorie/cholesterol chart. I was of the opinion there may be a create your own daily meal and you will see the details of calorie, cholesterol etc. but I cant find it. If you can help, great. Regardless it is a great amount of info. Many thanks
The sample diet page is a starting point, also the menu planner is really good.
Counting cholesterol, saturated fat and calories is difficult.
I suggest people start with the menu planner and sample diet, control the saturated fat and cholesterol at the supermarket via the products bought - avoid the baddies so to speak - explained on the web site.
Calories then are the only things that need be worried about! Our cholesterol food chart contains the calorie count, cholesterol and saturated fat in many, many foods and drinks.
If it's fatty, oily or sugary, it probably not good calorie wise.
My aim was to avoid overburdening people with counting things, like cholesterol, by engendering a life style that favored the more suitable foods.
All the best
Donald.
Hello,
Your website is fantastic, well done.
My mother has been on cholesterol drugs previous however it made her
quite ill and her muscles sore. She went off those and eat very healthy
and did plenty of exercise. The doctor is telling us that she is in 1%
of the population that you can not lower your level. Is this correct?
I am scared as she has been eating right, fitness is at a high level and
it is still at 6.2. Since the start of the year it was 6. As I have
said, she has been eating fish and nothing fatty at all, walking
everyday too.
If you could reply that would be appreciated.
Kind Regards,
Maybe the doctor is right. The sore muscles may suggest she was having a rare skeletal muscular disintegration reaction to the statin drug, but, there are other drugs you may be able to try. See the non-statin drugs:
There is one statin drug that may be useful fluvastatin (Lescol), as it has so far not been associated with skeletal muscular disintegration.
Also, I'm not convinced the diet was good for lowering cholesterol that she was on. Please check out our dietary pages for lowering cholesterol, starting here and this low cholesterol menu planner and this page for lowering cholesterol naturally. Then go through the rest of this web site and extract what you can.
Remember, even on powerful drugs, you still have to watch your diet, as these drugs normally do not stop cholesterol being absorbed out of the food and put into our blood stream.
That was an interesting question. Thank you for asking, and, as always, always discuss all this information and suggestions with your doctor before acting on it.
Kind Regards,
Donald.