LDL cholesterol levels Archives - Amazing Health Advances https://amazinghealthadvances.net/tag/ldl-cholesterol-levels/ Your hub for fresh-picked health and wellness info Thu, 19 Aug 2021 00:33:44 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.1 https://amazinghealthadvances.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/AHA_Gradient_Bowl-150x150.jpg LDL cholesterol levels Archives - Amazing Health Advances https://amazinghealthadvances.net/tag/ldl-cholesterol-levels/ 32 32 The Effect of Avocados on Small, Dense, LDL Cholesterol https://amazinghealthadvances.net/the-effect-of-avocados-on-small-dense-ldl-cholesterol-7511/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-effect-of-avocados-on-small-dense-ldl-cholesterol-7511 https://amazinghealthadvances.net/the-effect-of-avocados-on-small-dense-ldl-cholesterol-7511/#respond Thu, 19 Aug 2021 07:00:34 +0000 https://amazinghealthadvances.net/?p=12557 Michael Greger M.D. FACLM via Nutrition Facts – What are the effects of oatmeal, walnuts, extra virgin olive oil, and avocados on LDL cholesterol size?  When a headline reads “Avocados could improve your cholesterol—and more,” the article and others like it are largely talking about substitution experiments, where avocado is added to the diet as a replacement for animal fats. In that case, it’s no wonder cholesterol goes down. Dairy and poultry are the two greatest contributors of cholesterol-raising saturated fat intake, so if you take people eating a standard North American diet including animal fats, they may start out with an LDL cholesterol level up around 95mg/dl. If you add avocado to their diet without doing anything else, their cholesterol does not go down; instead, it may go up to around 105mg/dl. If you add avocado while reducing saturated fat intake, though, cholesterol falls to about 90mg/dl—but that drop isn’t very different from what you’d get by just reducing saturated fat and adding nothing, which was shown to give an LDL under 90mg/dl, as you can see at 0:34 in my video Avocados Lower Small Dense LDL Cholesterol. What if you compared the effects of eating no meat at all with a meat-free diet that included avocado? Researchers took people with sky-high cholesterol levels up around 300mg/dl and switched them to either a relatively low-fat vegetarian diet with about 20 percent of calories from fat or a vegetarian diet with added avocado that took it up about 30 percent of calories from fat, which is a more typical fat content. As you can see at 1:22 in my video, the study participants started out with LDLs through the roof, and, while cutting out meat may have helped, cutting out meat and adding avocado seemed to help even more—and it may help best with the worst type of LDL. As I’ve touched on before, all LDL cholesterol is bad cholesterol. However, large, fluffy LDL may only increase the odds of cardiac events such as heart attacks by 31 percent, whereas small, dense LDL is even worse and increases the odds by 44 percent. If you feed people a lot of oatmeal and oat bran, not only does that cause their LDL to go down overall, but it specifically brings down the small LDL, the worst of the worst. What happens if you add walnuts to a low-fat diet? As you can see at 2:04 in my video, LDL goes down and, at the same time, the size distribution of the LDL shifts to be a little more benign. What if you put people on a plant-based diet with lots of fiber and nuts? As shown as 2:15 in my video, you can get a massive 30 percent drop in LDL, a drop that is comparable to a cholesterol-lowering statin drug. What’s more, this includes a drop in the small, dense LDL, which is the most dangerous. This does not happen with extra-virgin olive oil, however, so it’s not just a monounsaturated fat effect. In the famous PREDIMED study, which you can see at 2:35 in my video, those randomized to the extra nuts group got a significant drop in the smallest, densest LDL, but those randomized to the extra-virgin olive oil group did not. So, there appears to be some special components in nuts that lowers the worst of the worst LDL cholesterol. Do avocados offer similar benefits? We didn’t know until the first randomized controlled feeding trial to look at avocados and LDL size. The researchers removed animal fat from people’s diet and replaced it with either carbohydrates, avocado, or vegetable oils that had a similar fat profile to the avocados. In this way, the avocado group and the vegetable oil group were put on very similar diets, except one had the nutrients unique to avocados and the other did not. What happened? Any time you lower intake of saturated fat, such as replacing animal fat with plant fat (vegetable oil in this case) or carbohydrates, you’re going to bring down LDL. Okay, but does replacing animal fat with the whole plant food avocado make a difference? Yes. That resulted in an even better effect. To see why, the researchers broke the LDL down into large versus small. All three treatments brought down the dangerous large LDL, but the avocado had the additional effect of also bringing down the super dangerous small LDL. That’s where that extra drop came from. You can see a graph depicting these findings at 3:27 in my video. So, it’s not just a matter of replacing animal fat with plant fat. There are additional benefits to the fiber and phytonutrients of whole plant foods like avocados. If there’s something good in avocados, should we just add avocado extracts to meat? Well, incorporating avocado extracts into pork patties evidently reduces the meat’s cholesterol oxidation products that “have been well documented” to be toxic, carcinogenic, and atherosclerotic, but it doesn’t eliminate them. KEY TAKEAWAYS Dairy and poultry are two of the most significant contributors of cholesterol-raising saturated fat in the diet. Simply adding avocado to the diet without also reducing saturated fat intake does not appear to lower cholesterol and, in fact, may cause it to rise. Substitution experiments, where avocado replaces animal fats in the diet, have shown improvements in cholesterol, however, the drop does not appear to differ much from just reducing saturated fat consumption without adding anything else. Comparing the effects of a meat-free diet to a meat-free diet with added avocado, researchers found that eschewing meat while also adding avocado helped even more than merely skipping meat, and it may help more effectively with the worst type of bad LDL cholesterol, small, dense LDL. Oatmeal, oat bran, walnuts, and a plant-based diet rich in fiber and nuts have all been shown to cause LDL to lower overall and the more dangerous, small LDL, specifically, but this was not seen with extra-virgin olive oil, suggesting it is not only a monounsaturated fat effect. Researchers removed animal fat from subjects’ diets and replaced it with either carbohydrates, avocado, or vegetable oils with similar fat profiles to avocados and found that replacing the animal fat with the whole plant food avocado had the best results in reducing LDL. All three treatments lowered large LDL, but avocado had the added effect of also lowering the more dangerous small LDL. To read the original article click here.

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]]> https://amazinghealthadvances.net/the-effect-of-avocados-on-small-dense-ldl-cholesterol-7511/feed/ 0 Improve Your Gut Health by Eating Just One of THIS Fruit a Day https://amazinghealthadvances.net/improve-your-gut-health-by-eating-just-one-of-this-fruit-a-day-7086/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=improve-your-gut-health-by-eating-just-one-of-this-fruit-a-day-7086 https://amazinghealthadvances.net/improve-your-gut-health-by-eating-just-one-of-this-fruit-a-day-7086/#respond Tue, 26 Jan 2021 08:00:29 +0000 http://amazinghealthadvances.net/?p=10817 Joy Jensen via NaturalHealth365 – Over the past few years, we’ve continually learned more about the exciting health benefits of avocados.  Studies conducted on this fruit have found that they’re useful for regulating LDL cholesterol levels, lowering the risk of heart disease.  Additional research shows that they help support immune function, may curb appetite, lower blood pressure, support healthy skin, and even help prevent certain types of cancer. The authors of a new study decided to investigate a different side of avocados, delving into their effects on the digestive system.  Findings published in the Journal of Nutrition show that eating an avocado a day improves overall gut health drastically. 12-weeks Study Shows POWERFUL Benefits to Gut Health Study authors wanted to go beyond the obvious benefits of consuming avocados, like their ability to reduce cholesterol and make you feel full to focus on how they influence the gut.  The study involved 163 people between 25 and 45 years of age who were overweight or obese but otherwise in good health. Broken into two groups, over 12 weeks, one group of people added an avocado to one meal a day.  The second group of participants ate similar meals but did not have an avocado.  Throughout the study period, all members provided fecal, urine, and blood samples and reported how much of their meals were eaten each day. At the end of the study, researchers discovered that the group eating an avocado daily resulted in more healthful microbes found in the intestines and stomach.  Along with their ability to increase the healthy microbes in the gut, study authors also noted that avocados’ high fiber content makes them excellent for digestive health, too.  Researchers noticed that, interestingly, the avocado group also excreted more fat in their stools, suggesting that they may not have absorbed as much energy from the foods they ate. Ready to Add an Avocado to Your Daily Diet? Here Are Some Simple Ways to Enjoy This INCREDIBLE Fruit Avocados are a mild fruit that’s easy to incorporate into both savory or sweet dishes.  They’re a great addition to your favorite salads, can be added to sauces, and taste delicious stuffed with an egg and other ingredients.  Of course, avocado toast is a favorite option for many avocado lovers, and they’re even delicious in smoothies along with protein powder and your favorite fruits. For those who aren’t fans of avocados, it’s possible to get probiotic nutrients in other ways.  Eating yogurt is a popular way to get more good bacteria into your gut.  Consuming more vegetables high in fiber like lentils, artichokes, broccoli, and chickpeas also benefit gut health.  Chickpeas, in particular, contain a fermentable fiber that promotes gut health, and they are known for fighting heart disease and curbing the appetite, too. Sources for this article include: OUP.com MedicalNewsToday.com NaturalHealth365.com NaturalHealth365.com To read the original article click here. For more articles from NaturalHealth365 click here.

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