Approximately 500,000 adults in the United States die from heart attacks every year, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute states. Elevated cholesterol levels are a common preventable cause of heart disease. If you have high cholesterol, check with your doctor for treatments. Additionally, try one of the best cholesterol-lowering diets to get your cholesterol levels back to healthy levels.
Mediterranean Diet
The Mediterranean diet is a popular diet plan used to treat everything from depression to diabetes. The foundation of the Mediterranean diet is healthy foods like fresh fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy, seafood, olive oil and nuts. Mediterranean dieters tend to strictly limit the consumption of red meat, fast food and soda. Followers of the Mediterranean diet tend to have significantly lower levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol, MayoClinic.com states. Additionally, the healthy fats in the Mediterranean diet can boost sagging "good" HDL cholesterol.
Caveman Diet
The caveman diet attempts to recreate the eating habits of hunter-gatherers who thrived during the Paleolithic era. This diet allows an abundance of meat, vegetables and fruit. However, caveman dieters do not consume grains or dairy products. Adults that switch to a caveman diet can significantly reduce their total and LDL cholesterol levels, the December 2008 "European Journal of Clinical Nutrition" reports.
Atkins Diet
The Atkins diet ushered in the low-carb era in the United States. While the diet is controversial among dietitians and doctors, the 2007 issue of the "Journal of the American Medical Association" found that the Atkins diet lowered cholesterol significantly more than The Zone and the Ornish diets in terms of cholesterol reduction over a one-year period. In this study, Atkins followers also lost more body weight, partially explaining the cholesterol-lowering benefits of the Atkins diet.
NCEP Diet
The NCEP diet is a fad-free approach to cholesterol reduction developed by experts at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. The NCEP diet recommends that individuals with high cholesterol limit their saturated fat intake to less than 7 percent of calories. Additionally, NCEP followers are asked to eat no more than 200 mg per day of dietary cholesterol from foods like beef and dairy. The diet also recommends at least 10 g of soluble fiber per day from foods like oats, apples and beans.
References
- National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute: High Blood Cholesterol: What You Need To Know
- MayoClinic.com: Mediterranean Diet: Choose This Heart-healthy Diet Option
- "European Journal of Clinical Nutrition"; Metabolic and Physiologic Improvements From Consuming a Paleolithic, Hunter-gatherer Type Diet; 2009
- JAMA: Comparison of the Atkins, Zone, Ornish, and LEARN Diets for Change in Weight and Related Risk Factors Among Overweight Premenopausal Women
- American Heart Association: Step I , Step II and TLC Diets
