How did you successfully lower your cholesterol?

[bookworm1982]

Sorry I know this isn't exactly chatty but thought I would reach more people. My cholesterol is a bit high and I wondered if anyone had any tips on how to lower it? I've obviously googled this but I just wanted some actual advice from those that have lowered it successfully. Thank you!

Yes my sister and I are both on the same statin and it has worked on both of us to bring our cholesterol down. Our dad had a heart attack early 40s so and we seem to have that genetic higher cholesterol so statins are best for us

We use these…….. he has been taking 1 in the morning with breakfast and 2 at night 😊

amzn.eu/d/7uhSD3b

I had a look at those Benecol drinks in the supermarket but they contain sweeteners! How can that be good?

i get the no added sugar ones.

Since starting mounjaro by cholesterol has gone from over 7 to 4.5 I was not keen on statins as had a genetic test for something else which told me I would likely get side effects from statins

I am unsure if it is the weight loss or the meds but I am hopefully going to stay on the mounjaro at a low dose long term for weight maintenance if I can afford it.

My dh was told that his would reduce if he lost weight. And it did.
He wasn’t anything like obese, but did need to lose a stone or two. Also, he’s been drinking little Benecol pots every day since, and that was years ago.

I suspect where you're going 'wrong' is getting older. Cholesterol goes up with age and some very healthy people still have high cholesterol as they get older.

Eat porridge.

It's not about the cholesterol in food, it's the cholesterol in you that's the problem. They're different things.
I think it's the trans fats we have to avoid, not the cholesterol in food, which is why most experts now say eggs are fine.

I've got familial hypercholesterolemia, the only thing that works for me is medication - two different pills each day.

But lots of people, especially over 40, have high cholesterol at a normal weight.

DH had really high cholesterol, 14.
He is 6ft 4 and weighs 12 st. He is not overweight. He’s been vegetarian for 30 years so he was surprised it was so high.

He cut out all pastries, biscuits and cakes. Switched to oat milk. We cook from scratch anyway so very limited UPFs. Never had takeaways.

In a year his cholesterol went from 14 to 8.

That is still high though, has he got familial hight cholesterol I wonder

Menopause sees cholesterol rise in many women. it just happens.

Resistance training. Try Caroline Girvan on YouTube

Oats at breakfast with a few nuts, berries, cinnamon (no sugar, no honey), low fat Greek yogurt is good also.

lunch and dinner:

Olive Oil and vinegar - kick start your metabolism

big veggies and/or salads at lunch AND dinner.

Only one piece of bread or small carbs per lunch and dinner.

Lean meats and fish mostly in oven, no frying.

replace lost bread and potatoes with pulses, beans, lentils etc. lots of good ready made cooked stuff with sauces if you don’t know where to start, in the supermarket.

unlimited fruit such as apples, pears, berries, citrus

go easy on tropicals like mango and pineapple.

banana and Brazil nut every day

cheese twice a week.

low fat yogurt every day for the calcium

And eggs. Every day. I don’t care what they say, eggs are fantastic for stopping you snacking and overall are so healthy. If you exercise enough, you won’t need to stop eating them. A complete protein.

I reduced mine (still needs improvement) and the only real changes I made were eating cashews, drinking Benecol and exercising. Although now I've read more of this thread I'm wondering whether being on HRT helped.

Mine went from about 7.5 to 6.5 over a year, just from really increasing exercise. I went from very little exercise to 4 sessions a week. No diet changes or weight loss.

As pp have said, high-ish cholesterol isn’t always bad. In my case it is the “good” cholesterol which is high and my ratio is great. I have a good diet - I do eat quite a lot of sat fat but it’s butter cheese meat, not processed fats. Very little cake/biscuits etc. I have a family history of high cholesterol but no heart/stroke type problems. So I am not especially worried about mine and certainly won’t be taking statins.

I read somewhere that having high cholesterol protects you from alzeheimers, but that could be total bollox. There is quite the tiktok campaign (on my feed anyway) about how high cholesterol isnt an issue at all its a good thing. However, Im too scared to not do something, and as I am single and live alone I was living off crap and not enough (so not eating until after work and just grabbing a sandwich from the one-stop!). So my diet needed a total overhaul anyway. I was surprised as I tended to think high cholesterol was what overweight people had, and Im a healthy weight. I had blood counts done because of feeling unwell and I was low in folate, iron and high cholesterol. So need the leafy greens big time! I do miss the days when I wasnt thinking about it and just eating to live. My kitchens gone from looking like old mother hubbards, to a green grocers!

It is familial. His brother is the same.

Exercise, a heart healthy diet with a focus on foods that reduce cholesterol - beans, oats, oily fish. It took me from 9 to 2. Advice on Heart UK is excellent and was recommended to me by my consultant. Please don't ignore high cholesterol. Take it seriously. I didn't and had a stroke, likely caused by mine.

Christ really? Did they say it was linked? Thats scared me...

Sorry for scaring you, but yes. It was one of main contributing factors in my stroke. The good news is that lowering cholesterol is possible and I wish my GP had been more explicit about the risks and I had taken more notice. Defo look at the Heart UK site. Loads of great info on there.

Isn't it high blood pressure plus high cholesterol together the highest risk for e.g. stroke.

Not in my case, no. I had/have ompletely normal BP. But high BP on top on high cholesterol would defo increase the risk of stroke.

ive heard eating a grapefruit helps