How to eat your way to lower cholesterol
Julia Kim, 64, an IT specialist from Boston, began taking a statin more than 30 years ago because of a family history of high cholesterol.
But six months ago, tired of having to take the drug and its side effects, she quit, and within three days, her decades-long chronic backache was gone. An avid runner, she is thrilled to be pain free, but she is stymied about how to manage her cholesterol.
“I feel better than I have in 30 years, but my cholesterol numbers are going up,” Kim said. “I don’t want to control my cholesterol with drugs. Every drug has side effects. I need to find a natural way to deal with this.”
Kim is not alone. Many people don’t want to take cholesterol-lowering drugs, and some people can’t take them. Statins are effective and considered safe for most people, but they raise the risk of side effects, including muscle aches, liver problems, mental fuzziness and the potential for developing diabetes.
“Nobody wants to start taking medicine,” said Donald Hensrud, associate professor of nutrition and preventive medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. “We all age, and things usually go up with age: cholesterol, weight, blood pressure. At some point, people are faced with this.”
Cholesterol is a waxy, fatlike substance in the blood produced by the liver and from the food we eat. There are two kinds: low-density lipoprotein or LDL, the “bad” cholesterol, and high-density lipoprotein, or HDL, the “good” kind. (Think ‘L’ for lethal and ‘H’ for healthy.) Triglycerides — another type of fat — also contribute to cholesterol buildup. Cholesterol is measured in milligrams per deciliter of blood — or mg/dl. Ideally, healthy people should have an LDL of 100 mg/dl or lower and an HDL above 60.
Cholesterol is not inherently bad — the body uses it to make cells, vitamins and certain hormones — but too much LDL can build up inside the arteries, raising the danger of heart disease and stroke. A high HDL level, on the other hand, helps protect the heart by carrying