The Truth About Cholesterol and What You Can Do About It
This article will serve as a resource for better understanding not only your cholesterol levels, but what you can do to manage and bring your cholesterol numbers into a healthy range. This article will focus on methods related to nutrition and exercise for lowering your cholesterol. It is important you seek the counsel of your doctor before going off or on any medication related to lowering your cholesterol.
What is the Truth About Cholesterol?
Cholesterol has been a somewhat misleading and confusing topic for a lot of people ever since it became the go-to-method for determining early detection of heart disease, stroke, and arteriosclerosis. Since it’s wide spread focus as the cause of early death due to heart disease in the 1960s, science has come a long way in understanding more about the true nature and effects that cholesterol has in the body. Cholesterol is complicated, to say the least, so the lack of clarity on the subject of how cholesterol affects our health is not a surprise. With that said, modern science has a much better understanding of what we need to do bring our cholesterol number into a healthy range.
Going forward, I will break down the complexity of cholesterol into parts that are much more digestible. First we will go over the different types of cholesterol, then talk about what we can do to raise good cholesterol (HDL), lower bad cholesterol (LDL), as well as answering common questions about cholesterol.
The Different Types of Cholesterol
Many people are not aware that you do not have one big cholesterol number, but rather several types of cholesterol. These break down into two major categories:
- HDL cholesterol
- LDL cholesterol
Within HDL and LDL, you have a further breakdown of cholesterol particles called small dense apolipoproteins and large buoyant apolipoproteins. For now, let’s focus on the two major types of cholesterol, HDL and LDL.
High Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol (HDL)
HDL cholesterol is also known as the “good” cholesterol because of the purpose it serves in the body. HDL cholesterol acts as the police of the cholesterol world. It cleans up the arteries and blood vessels of LDL cholesterol and brings it back to the liver where it can be broken down. This is why you want to have a higher level of HDL than LDL. The more HDL you have, the more protection you have against heart disease, strokes, and arteriosclerosis. That being said, this is not an end all be all approach to staying heathy. While you want to have a higher level of HDL than LDL, lowering your LDL is much more important, and should be a priority when looking to improve your cholesterol numbers.
Low Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol (LDL)
LDL is often considered as the “bad guy” in the cholesterol world. It is the harmful type of cholesterol that sticks to the bottom of our arteries and gunks them up. It is the chronic build up of LDL cholesterol that leads to blocked arteries and eventually heart disease and strokes. These conditions are also often made worse by Type II diabetes and pre-diabetes. As mentioned before, HDL cholesterol has a tendency to be protective against the effects of LDL cholesterol.
When looking at strategies for reducing your LDL cholesterol, exercise and diet play the biggest role. It is also important to realize that you should not simply try to increase your HDL cholesterol in hopes that it will police the LDL cholesterol. If you have high levels of LDL, lowering your LDL should be your main priority.
What’s The Deal With Triglycerides?
Triglycerides are another marker a long with cholesterol to determine what direction your health is going. High levels of triglycerides in the bloodstream typically indicated an increase in calorie consumption and weight gain. They also rise when we over consume refined carbohydrates, trans fats, and sugar. In high amounts, our livers struggle to convert these calories into useable energy and instead stores them as fat. Just like LDL cholesterol, high levels of triglycerides can stick to the walls of our arteries and eventually make our blood thicker. Thicker blood and plaque build up in our arteries increase the risk of heart attack and strokes by as much as 50%. Indeed, keeping our blood levels of triglycerides low should be just as important as reducing our LDL cholesterol! It is worth noting that Fish oil, which we recommend you take on our Fit for Life Meal sheets, has been shown in numerous studies to significantly lower triglyceride levels. Fish oil also helps with inflammation and blood pressure, two body conditions that when managed can reduce your risk of heart disease and death related to high cholesterol.
Does Nutrition Affect My HDL and LDL Cholesterol?
Nutrition plays the biggest role in determining your LDL cholesterol. With the exception of rare genetic predispositions, many people can lower their LDL cholesterol by proper nutrition alone. When it comes to lowering your LDL, the strategy has more to do with limiting the frequency of certain foods than it has to do with eating specific foods all the time. Indeed, eating a diet high in fiber and plants will do amazing things for lowering your LDL cholesterol, but on top of that, managing the amount of junk foods you consume will be highly beneficial.
Believe it or not, dietary fat and cholesterol from foods like eggs and red meat has not been shown to raise your cholesterol. This contradicts the common belief that fat from food makes your cholesterol go up. In fact, most the cholesterol in your body is made by the body itself! 75% of all cholesterol found in your body is made in the body, not form the food you eat. Cholesterol from food only accounts for 25% of total cholesterol. If you don’t eat enough cholesterol rich foods, your body simply makes more cholesterol. If you eat enough cholesterol rich foods, your body doesn’t need to make as much.
Does Exercise Affect My HDL and LDL Cholesterol?
Yes. Physical activity is one of the best ways to raise your HDL cholesterol and lower your LDL. One of the best ways you can manage your LDL cholesterol is by keeping your body fat levels within healthy ranges. For men this is anywhere between 10-20%, and for women 17-24% is ideal for optimal health. Although exercise can have an effect on your LDL levels by way of lowering body fat, your nutrition plays a much bigger role in lowering your LDL cholesterol than exercise. Exercise is a much more effective tool for raising your HDL cholesterol.
What Types of Foods Affect HDL Cholesterol?
Healthy fats and lean proteins are the best foods for improving your good cholesterol. Remember, cholesterol rich foods are not going to effect your cholesterol negatively. Foods like whole eggs, red meat, avocados, nuts, seeds, and saturated fat like butter and coconuts are actually good for you. These foods help keep the cholesterol in our bodies in the healthy ranges. Fish oil also helps keep the ratio of good fat to bad fat in your body balanced. By getting more omega 3s found in fish oil and flax seeds, you reduce your overall risk of disease substantially.
What Types of Food Affect LDL Cholesterol?
The biggest culprit in raising your LDL cholesterol are highly refined foods like sugar, trans fats, and highly progressed carbohydrates like donuts, cakes, cookies, potato chips, french fries, and the like. When consumed in large quantities and frequently, these foods will push your LDL cholesterol through the roof! On a positive note, fiber has been shown to bind to LDL cholesterol and take it out of the body, effectively keeping it from circulating back into the body to be resorbed and used. Indeed, fiber missing from our diets has contributed to a national rise in LDL cholesterol.
What Are Healthy Levels of HDL and LDL Cholesterol?
As a general rule of thumb, you want HDL to be higher than LDL cholesterol. In terms of numbers, here are some examples so you know what to aim for when improving your cholesterol profile.
Total Cholesterol Level
Less than 200mg/dL (Desirable)
200-239mg/dL (Borderline High)
240mg/dL and above (High)
LDL Cholesterol Levels
Less than 100mg/dL (Optimal)
100-129mg/dL (Good)
130-159mg/dL (Borderline High)
160-189mg/dL (High)
190mg/dL and above (Very High)
HDL Cholesterol Levels
Less than 40 mg/dL (Major Risk for Heart Disease)
40-59 mg/dL (Lower Risk for Heart Disease)
60 mg/dL and higher (Considered Protective Against Heart Disease)
Factors That Affect LDL Cholesterol Outside of Nutrition and Exercise
Age
As men and women get older, their cholesterol levels naturally rise. While this is normal, it is still important to manage the balance of HDL and LDL. As we get older, we have to work more diligently on nutrition because our bodies don’t function the same in our 40s, 50s, and 60s as they do in our 20s and 30s.
Family History
If you have a family history of high cholesterol, it is important that you find out if you have a naturally high cholesterol number. You may be predisposed to a high cholesterol level due to genetics, but that doesn’t mean you are at the mercy of your genes. You have more control than you might think. To be safe, ask your doctor to be tested for Familial hypercholesterolemia. This is a genetic condition that severally limits the natural elimination of LDL cholesterol. This defect can keep your LDL cholesterol high no matter how sound your nutrition plan.
High Blood Pressure
This is usually caused by stress, obesity, lack of exercise, and a poor diet. Improving your stress levels, sleeping better, exercising more, and eating more whole foods can help lower your blood pressure
Smoking
This one is self explanatory. You should not be smoking at all.
Shane Hubbard
NASM-CPT
PN Level 1 Nutrition Coach
Holistic Lifestyle Coach Level 2
