Low-fat Diets For People With High Cholesterol

Diets with too much fat, particularly saturated fat, often cause increases in blood cholesterol, according to health-related organizations such as the American Heart Association. Reducing cholesterol to below 200 mgs per deciliter (mg/dL) is crucial because higher numbers increase heart-disease risks. The American Heart Association regards a diet as too fatty when 30 percent of its calories come from fat and 10 percent from saturated fat, and recommends lower-fat diets for people with cholesterol problems.

TLC Diet

The US Department of Health and Human Services, in cooperation with the American Heart Association, devised the National Cholesterol Education Program, which includes the Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC) diet. The diet helps to lower your LDL (bad) cholesterol, according to the program's "High Blood Cholesterol" report.

TLC dieters should limit their saturated fat to less than 7 percent of their calories and their dietary cholesterol to fewer than 200 mg daily. The saturated fat recommendation will lower your bad cholesterol 8 to 10 percent, according to the program's "Lowering Your Cholesterol" report. Low-saturated fat foods include fish, fruits, lean meat, low-fat dairy products, vegetables and whole-grain foods.

Pritikin Diet

The US Department of Agriculture recommends that 29 percent of a diet's calories come from fat, but the Pritikin Diet recommends that only 10 percent of calories come from fat. According to the Pritikin Longevity Center, people who are on the Pritikin Diet for four years have an average total cholesterol of 160 mg/dL, while non-Pritikin dieters had a 240 mg/dL average.

The Pritikin Diet emphasizes eating a multitude of dark green, orange and yellow vegetables, as much as seven servings per day. Robert Pritikin, the author of "The New Pritikin Program," also has a list of recommendations for replacing high-fat foods with low-fat foods. His low-fat recommendations include flank steak, round steak, white-meat chicken and white-meat turkey.

Portfolio Diet

University of Toronto researchers created the Cholesterol-Lowering Portfolio Diet, which features low-fat foods that are "known to lower cholesterol," according to the Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide. Foods with a lot of soluble fiber and foods enriched with plant sterols reduce blood cholesterol.

Adding 5 to 10 grams of soluble fiber daily will reduce your bad cholesterol 3 to 5 percent, according to the "Lowering Your Cholesterol" report; adding 2 grams of plant sterols daily will cut cholesterol 5 to 15 percent. Fruits and vegetables with the most soluble fiber include figs, strawberries, Brussels sprouts, yam, kale, eggplant and okra. Granola bars, margarine, orange juice and yogurt are often fortified with sterols.

Mediterranean Diet

People who live near the Mediterranean Sea, including residents of southern Italy and Greece, have lower cholesterol numbers and less heart disease than Americans because they eat a low-fat diet high in fruits and vegetables, according to the textbook "Essentials for Health and Wellness." The Mediterranean Diet has very little meat, but it includes modest quantities of cheese, eggs, fish, poultry and yogurt, according to the Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide.