Controlling your risk factors for heart disease, such as high blood cholesterol levels, remains the focus for health professionals because heart disease accounts for approximately one-third of all deaths in the United States, according to the American Heart Association. The National Cholesterol Education Program, along with many doctors, advocate the use of cholesterol-lowering medications known as statins to reduce LDL and total cholesterol levels. Making lifestyle changes, such as following a strict cholesterol diet or increasing your physical activity, can also lower your cholesterol levels.
Therapeutic Lifestyle Diet
Upon receiving a diagnosis of high blood cholesterol, defined as a total cholesterol greater than 240 mg/dL or a LDL cholesterol greater than 160 mg/dL, your doctor will suggest making certain lifestyle changes. These changes include quitting smoking, limiting your intake of alcohol, increasing your physical activity level and following a Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes Diet, also known as the TLC diet. The TLC diet provides intensive guidelines for patients to make lifetime changes in their eating habits. The TLC diet restricts the intake of saturated fats to less than 7 percent to help reduce the LDL cholesterol level. This strict cholesterol diet also restricts the intake of dietary cholesterol to less than 200 mg per day, less than the daily recommended intake of 300 mg per day set for healthy individuals.
DASH Diet
The DASH diet, the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension diet, was developed by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute to help patients lower their blood pressure, another risk factor for heart disease. The DASH diet stresses eating fruits, vegetables and fat-free milk products, along with whole grains, fish, poultry and nuts. The DASH diet is low in sodium, saturated fat and total fat and places strict restrictions on cholesterol intake, recommending no more than 150 mg per day. Following the DASH diet can help lower your blood pressure and also your blood cholesterol levels.
Functional Food Diet
In response to a push by the National Cholesterol Education Program and doctors to prescribe medications to more patients to lower cholesterol levels, doctors from the Clinical Nutrition and Risk Factor Modification Center completed a clinical trial testing the use of cholesterol-lowering diets containing functional foods to determine if diet can lower cholesterol as effectively as the medications. During the trial, patients completed three phases, each separated by two six-week periods. During phase one they consume a very low-saturated fat dairy and whole-wheat cereal diet. Phase two followed the same diet but added the use of a statin medication. During phase three, patients consumed a diet containing functional foods that include viscous fibers, plant sterols, soy foods, almonds, fruits and vegetables. The study, published in the "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition" found that the functional food diet and the statin medication both lower LDL cholesterol levels with no significant difference in the results. This is good news for those with high cholesterol who do not want to be bound to taking a medication for life.
Goals
The goal of strict cholesterol diets is to lower total and LDL cholesterol into the healthy range to reduce the risk for heart disease. Healthy patients with no other heart disease risk factors should maintain a total cholesterol under 240 mg/dL and a LDL cholesterol under 160 mg/dL. Patients with two or more risk factors for heart disease should strive to keep their total cholesterol under 200 mg/dL and their LDL cholesterol less than 130 mg/dL. Patients with heart disease need to maintain their LDL cholesterol at the optimal level of less than 100 mg/dL.
References
- American Heart Association; Report on Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics; 2010
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Cholesterol; February 2010
- American Heart Association: TLC Diet
- "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition"; Direct Comparison of a Dietary Portfolio of Cholesterol-lowering Foods with a Statin in Hypercholesterolemic Participants; David J.A. Jenkins et. al.; February 2005
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Your Guide to Lowering Your Blood Pressure with DASH; April 2006
- National Heart Lung and Blood Institute: High Blood Cholesterol
