{"id":190393,"date":"2025-12-18T18:25:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T18:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/190393\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T18:25:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T18:25:08","slug":"all-the-foods-that-lower-cholesterol-according-to-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/190393\/","title":{"rendered":"All the Foods That Lower Cholesterol, According to Experts"},"content":{"rendered":"

The U.S. has a cholesterol<\/a> problem. Roughly 37% of Americans<\/a> have high cholesterol, a statistic that\u2019s likely underreported, considering that, according to a 2023 study<\/a>, many people with high cholesterol don\u2019t know they have it.<\/p>\n

The problem specifically is low-density lipoprotein, or LDL cholesterol<\/a>, which clogs arteries when there\u2019s too much of it. This is different from high-density lipoprotein (HDL), which transports cholesterol to the liver, where it\u2019s broken down and excreted.<\/p>\n

Dr. Sunny S. Intwala, MD,<\/a> a preventive cardiologist with Nuvance Health in New York, says that high cholesterol often flies under the radar. Even if you\u2019re young and in good shape, if your diet and lifestyle habits don\u2019t support healthy cholesterol levels, it will catch up with you. \u201cYou can be lean, fit, and young, and still silently be accumulating plaque in your arteries,\u201d Dr. Intwala says. \u201cYour arteries don\u2019t care how good your VO2max<\/a> is. Supporting healthy cholesterol levels is about protecting your future health.\u201d<\/p>\n

High cholesterol is literally life-threatening<\/a>. It increases the risk of heart attack and cardiovascular disease, which is the number one cause of death in the U.S<\/a>. Here\u2019s the good news: It\u2019s completely controllable, and the sooner you have cholesterol-supporting habits in place, the better. A major part of that has to do with what you\u2019re eating.<\/p>\n

How to lower cholesterol through diet and lifestyle<\/p>\n

According to Dr. Corey K. Bradley, MD, FACC<\/a>, a preventive cardiologist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, roughly 20 to 30% of high cholesterol is controllable through diet and lifestyle habits. The rest, she says, comes down to whether you are genetically predisposed to have high cholesterol.<\/p>\n

Dr. Bradley says that roughly one in 250 people has a genetic disorder called familial hypercholesterolemia (FH)<\/a>, an inherited disorder leading to extremely high LDL cholesterol and must be treated with medication, along with diet and lifestyle interventions. \u201cYou can be the picture of health on the outside, but still have really dangerous levels of LDL cholesterol,\u201d she says, emphasizing that this is why it\u2019s important for everyone to have their cholesterol levels checked at least every couple of years.<\/p>\n

As for the 20% and 30% that is in your control<\/a>, all three cardiologists we spoke to advise a combination of not smoking, exercising regularly<\/a>, and following a heart-healthy diet. Dr. Bradley is a big advocate of following the Mediterranean diet<\/a>, which has been repeatedly scientifically shown to keep LDL cholesterol low. This way of eating prioritizes seafood, lean proteins, vegetables, fruit, and whole grains, while minimizing ultra-processed foods and fatty meats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. has a cholesterol problem. Roughly 37% of Americans have high cholesterol, a statistic that\u2019s likely underreported,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[564,134,4195,111,139,556,69,2795,1251,5510],"class_list":{"0":"post-190393","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-food","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-heart-health","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nutrition","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-textbelowcentergridwidth","16":"tag-web","17":"tag-wellness"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}