Relation Of Degree Of Weight Loss To Level Of Risk Factor Improvement
Patients were divided into the following weight loss groups: < 5 % , 510 % , and > 10 % . Six patients who gained weight over the program were eliminated from all analyses examining differences between weight loss groups. There were no differences between the weight loss groups on baseline BMI or on any of their baseline risk factor values, for men or women. However, all baseline risk factor values differed significantly between men and women thus, effects of gender were analyzed where sample sizes allowed.
Patients who lost < 5 % of their starting weight experienced a significant reduction only in triglycerides . Patients who lost 510 % of their starting weight showed significant reductions in total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and triglycerides, with men experiencing a greater reduction than women on triclycerides. Patients who lost > 10 % of their weight saw significant reductions in all five risk factors, including HDL cholesterol, an undesirable change. In this group, men had greater reductions in fasting glucose and triglycerides than women while the reverse was true for HDL cholesterol.
Does Losing Weight Lower Cholesterol
High cholesterol is common in the United States. Reaching a moderate weight may decrease a persons cholesterol levels and lower the risks of certain cardiovascular conditions.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claim that close to 94 million in the U.S. over 20 years old have high cholesterol.
A person can experience an increase in their blood cholesterol levels if they are overweight or have obesity. This is due to changes in the processes related to fat metabolism. Therefore, reaching and maintaining a moderate weight can help to decrease an individuals cholesterol levels.
This article examines how high cholesterol is linked to obesity, how to lower cholesterol levels, and tips for reaching a moderate weight.
Health Conditions Related To Triglycerides And Cholesterol
High blood lipid levels may increase your risk for plaques to develop in your arteries or thicken the walls of your arteries .
Other health conditions related to high triglycerides or cholesterol include:
- High blood sugar levels or diabetes
- Metabolic syndromea cluster of conditions that increase your risk for heart disease
- Hypothyroidism
- Genetic conditions
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Will Stopping Smoking Lower My Cholesterol
If you’re a smoker you might already know you should stop if you have high cholesterol. Smoking increases bad cholesterol and lowers good cholesterol, increasing your risk of heart attacks and stroke.
- If youre struggling to stop smoking, talking to your GP is a great first step, or if youre in England you can call the NHS Stop Smoking Service on 0300 123 1044.
- There are also free services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
These services will be able to give you useful advice on how to deal with cravings and gradually stop smoking.
Find out more about what smoking does to your body.
Medicines To Lower Cholesterol
For some people, making lifestyle changes alone does not their lower cholesterol enough. They may also need to take medicines. There are several types of cholesterol-lowering drugs available. They work in different ways and can have different side effects. Talk to your health care provider about which medicine is right for you.
Even if you take medicines to lower your cholesterol, you still need to continue with lifestyle changes.
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How Can I Lower Cholesterol With Diet
Heart-healthy lifestyle changes include a diet to lower your cholesterol. The DASH eating plan is one example. Another is the Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes diet, which recommends that you
Choose healthier fats.You should limit both total fat and saturated fat. No more than 25 to 35% of your daily calories should come from dietary fats, and less than 7% of your daily calories should come from saturated fat. Depending upon how many calories you eat per day, here are the maximum amounts of fats that you should eat:
| Calories per Day | |
|---|---|
| 69-97 grams | 17 grams |
Saturated fat is a bad fat because it raises your LDL level more than anything else in your diet. It is found in some meats, dairy products, chocolate, baked goods, and deep-fried and processed foods.
Trans fat is another bad fat it can raise your LDL and lower you HDL . Trans fat is mostly in foods made with hydrogenated oils and fats, such as stick margarine, crackers, and french fries.
Instead of these bad fats, try healthier fats, such as lean meat, nuts, and unsaturated oils like canola, olive, and safflower oils.
Limit foods with cholesterol. If you are trying to lower your cholesterol, you should have less than 200 mg a day of cholesterol. Cholesterol is in foods of animal origin, such as liver and other organ meats, egg yolks, shrimp, and whole milk dairy products.
Eat plenty of soluble fiber. Foods high in soluble fiber help prevent your digestive tract from absorbing cholesterol. These foods include:
Replace Saturated Fats With Healthier Fats
Replacing foods that contain mainly saturated fats with foods that contain unsaturated fats such as polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats will help reduce your cholesterol level.
For example, instead of butter and cream in cooking, use olive oil, nut butters or avocado.
Healthy unsaturated fats are found in:
- nuts
- olives
- oily fish
- avocado
- fruits and vegetables
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Your Lipids During Weight Loss
Positive caloric balance especially in the setting of overweight or obesity is often associated with elevated triglycerides and low HDL-C LDL-C may not increase, but LDL particle number will usually be elevated resulting in increased risk of cardiovascular disease .
During active weight loss in overweight individuals the good cholesterol levels decrease. This is especially true for weight loss through dietary or drug therapy. However, after weight loss stabilizes, the HDL-C levels may return to baseline , and often increase above baseline. Intense or vigorous physical activity regime involving expenditure of between 700 kcal to 2000 kcal alone can cause significant increase in the good cholesterol levels, and to a lesser extent reduction in the levels of the bad cholesterol .
During active weight loss in overweight individuals, LDL-C may initially become elevated before returning to baseline , and then subsequently decrease. However, changes in LDL-C levels during active weight loss is determined by the nutritional method employed to lose weight. For instance, the use of high carbohydrate and low fat diet will result in increase triglyceride, decrease HDL-C and decrease LDL-C levels during the weight loss process, whereas, the use of low carbohydrate and high fat diets will result in low triglycerides, but elevated HDL-C , unchanged or increased LDC-C levels.
Diet Makes The Difference
But which diet yields the best results when it comes to improving your cholesterol levels? A study published in September 2014 in the Annals of Internal Medicine compared the effects of a low-carbohydrate diet and a low-fat diet on body weight and cardiovascular risk factors in nearly 150 people. The results? Participants in the low-carbohydrate diet lost more weight and showed improved cholesterol levels.
More extreme weight-loss measures produced even better results. A September 2019 study published in The Lancet looked at the effects of a 25 percent calorie-restricted diet over two years on more than 200 healthy adults not living with obesity.
As well as showing mean weight loss of more than 16 pounds in people who followed the low-calorie diet, the results showed a significant reduction in all cardiometabolic risk factors, including improved scores for LDL and HDL cholesterol and blood pressure.
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Change The Way You Eat
One of the contributing factors in the development of high blood cholesterol is a diet high in saturated fat, which is a form of fat typically found in foods that come from animal sources, including beef, pork, poultry, and dairy products like cheese and milk. Saturated fat can also be found in processed food and snacks like chips, cookies, and doughnuts.
To cut out saturated fat and eat in a way that will help lower your LDL cholesterol levels, switch to a plant-based diet filled with fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. The Mediterranean diet is one such plant-based diet thats rich in nutrients and phytochemicals. The diet includes healthy fats such as olive oil and fish, but plant-based foods make up the bulk of each meal. Red meat is limited to no more than a few times a month. This diet originated in countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, where theres significantly lower incidence of heart disease.
Consume A Variety Of Unsaturated Fats
There are mainly two types of fat found in our food:-
If we examine them at the chemical level,
Saturated fats have no double bonds and are highly straight, making them very tightly packed together and solid at room temperature.
Unsaturated fats have at least one double bond and a twisted shape, which prevents them from bonding as tightly as saturated fats.
Because of these properties, unsaturated fats remain in a liquid state at room temperature.
According to research, replacing almost all of your saturated fat with unsaturated fat will reduce total cholesterol by 9% and bad LDL cholesterol by 11% in just 8 weeks.
Long-term analyzes have also shown that people who consumed more unsaturated fat and less saturated fat had lower cholesterol levels over time.
Avocados, almonds, olives, nuts, and fatty fish are high in heart-healthy unsaturated fats, so regular consumption of such foods is beneficial for us.
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How Long Does It Take To Lower Triglycerides
Depending on whats causing your high triglyceride levels, you may be able to lower them in just a few days. A night out drinking or eating foods high in sugar can cause a spike in your triglyceride levels. Limiting alcohol and sugar intake can bring your levels back to normal within a few days.
If you have consistently high triglycerides, it may take a few months for them to return to a healthy range. How fast they lower depends on the lifestyle changes, diet, and medications youre taking.
Changes Among Patients With Higher
Additional analyses were conducted for each risk factor including only patients who had higher-risk baseline levels of that particular risk factor .2). Among these patients, significant reductions were seen for fasting glucose, triglycerides, total cholesterol, and LDL cholesterol there was no change in HDL cholesterol. Furthermore, men experienced greater reductions on triglycerides and total cholesterol than women. Correlations between weight loss and risk factor change were generally consistent with those seen with the entire sample, with degree of change in risk factor related to degree of weight loss, although less significantly so.
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How Can I Lower My Cholesterol With Medicines
As well as making lifestyle changes, some people will need to take cholesterol-lowering medicines to reduce their risk of heart and blood vessel disease, known as cardiovascular disease. The medicines most commonly used are called statins.
Your doctor will consider all your risk factors for cardiovascular disease before suggesting medication not just your cholesterol and lipid results. If youve already had a heart attack or stroke, taking statins can substantially lower your risk of having another one.
Statins work by slowing the amount of cholesterol made in your liver. In response, your liver uses the cholesterol already in your blood to make up for the deficit. This lowers the level of LDL cholesterol in your blood.
If statins alone do not lower your cholesterol enough, you may need additional medicines.
Contact your doctor if your medicines are causing any side effects.
How To Gain Weight While Lowering Cholesterol
If you have high cholesterol, one thing commonly recommended by doctors is to lose weight. But if you are underweight or are trying to gain muscle mass, this may not be the best plan. Fortunately, there are other ways to lower your cholesterol without losing weight. In fact, some of the steps you can take to healthily gain weight can also help you lower your cholesterol levels, which means that by making some changes to your diet and physical activity levels, you can gain weight while simultaneously protecting your heart.
Reduce the amount of fat in your diet. To lower your cholesterol, aim to get no more than 30 percent of your calories each day from fat, explains the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. Pay attention to what kinds of fat you consume eliminate trans and saturated fats to 10 percent of your daily calories or less.
Limit your daily cholesterol intake. Keeping the amount of cholesterol in your diet to under 300 mg per day will help you reduce your cholesterol levels.
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Remember That Muscle Is Denser Than Fat
When youre setting out to lose those first 10 pounds, keep in mind that muscle is denser than fat. This means your weight could stay the same, but if youre doing strength training, you may actually be replacing pounds of fat with lean muscle!
If you stand on the scale and notice that your weight isnt changing, dont feel discouraged. Instead, take measurements around your waist, hips, thighs, calves, upper arms, forearms, neck, wrist, shoulders, and chest. If youre truly replacing fat with muscle, youll start losing inches all over your body. And, because muscle tissue burns more calories than fat, your metabolism will also increase. This means youre doing a great job at getting rid of excess fat, even though the number on the scale may stay the same.
How Often Should I Have My Cholesterol Tested
Adults should have their blood lipids measured every 5 years, starting at 45 years. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should start lipid blood tests at 35, because on average heart and blood vessel disease such as heart attacks and stroke happen 10 to 20 years earlier in Indigenous people.
All Australians in these age groups are eligible for a regular 20-minute heart health check with their doctor. This checks your blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels. Your doctor can then assess your risk of having a heart attack or stroke in the next 5 years.
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Misconception: Cholesterol Isnt A Concern For Children
High cholesterol can be inherited. This is referred to as familial hypercholesterolemia.
Children who have this genetic disorder are at very high risk of heart disease. This problem is underdiagnosed and undertreated worldwide. Once identified, children with this condition may require aggressive treatment with medications.
Cholesterol testing could be considered for children and adolescents with elevated risk. That includes children or adolescents with:
- Family history of early cardiovascular disease
- Family history of total cholesterol of 240 mg/dL or above
- Obesity or other metabolic risk factors
Regardless of their risk, all children benefit from a healthy diet and lifestyle. Establishing healthy eating and physical activity habits early can reduce the risk of cardiovascular problems over time.
Evidence shows that the atherosclerotic process begins in childhood and progresses slowly into adulthood. Later in life, this often leads to coronary heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States.
To reduce your childs risk, its important to:
- Discourage cigarette smoking.
- Identify and treat high blood pressure.
- Help your child maintain a healthy weight.
- Diagnose and treat diabetes.
- Encourage a healthy diet.
Children age 2 and older should eat a diet that emphasizes fruits, vegetables, fish, whole grains and limits sodium and sugar sweetened foods and drinks.
Tips To Lower Cholesterol With Your Diet
Cholesterol is a waxy substance produced by your liver and obtained by eating animal products such as meat, dairy and eggs.
Your liver will produce less cholesterol if you consume a lot of this substance from food, so dietary cholesterol rarely has a great impact on total cholesterol levels.
However, eating large amounts of saturated fat, trans fat and sugars can raise cholesterol levels.
Bear in mind that there are different types of cholesterol.
While good HDL cholesterol may be beneficial for your health, high levels of bad LDL cholesterol, particularly when oxidized, have been linked to an increased risk of heart disease, heart attack and stroke .
Thats because oxidized LDL cholesterol is more likely to stick to the walls of your arteries and form plaques, which clog these blood vessels.
Here are 10 tips to lower cholesterol with your diet and help reduce your risk of heart disease.
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Misconception: If The Nutrition Facts Label Shows No Cholesterol The Food Is Heart Healthy
A foods Nutrition Facts label can be helpful for choosing heart-healthy foods, if you know what to look for.
Many foods marketed as low-cholesterol have high levels of saturated or trans fats, both of which raise blood cholesterol.
Look for how much saturated fat, trans fat and total calories are in a serving. Ingredients are listed in descending order of use, so choose products where fats and oils are near the end of the ingredients list.
How To Lower Cholesterol And Triglycerides
Triglycerides are a type of lipid, or fat, your body produces to store extra calories and provide energy. Cholesterol is another lipid that circulates in your blood. Your body uses cholesterol to build cells and produce hormones.
Both triglycerides and cholesterol are essential for your health but having levels that are too high puts your health at risk. Living a healthy lifestyle helps to keep your cholesterol and triglyceride levels within a normal range.
This article covers how triglycerides and cholesterol affect your health and how you can lower them naturally.
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