Eating different snacks could lower your cholesterol

MedPage Today reports on a new study, reported in the Journal of Nutrition, revealing that people who ate certain snacks instead of other snacks, including junk food, saw their cholesterol levels fall, even though they did not change anything else they ate.

The theory behind the experiment is that food is a type of medicine.  The right food can lower your LDL cholesterol and possibly your risk of death. In this experiment, the snack food was a substitute for a statin.

The patients in the experiment were not on statins. They could not take them or they did not want to take them. They had no chronic conditions and did not smoke.

The snack substitution worked well, with almost everyone adhering to their new diet. That is not always the case! A lot of people are hard-pressed to give up junk food and other snacks that are unhealthy.

So what are foods with cholesterol-lowering ingredients? They are pretty yummy, as it turn out: Oatmeal, smoothies, granola, chocolate bars. These foods replaced snack bars, oreos, goldfish, potato chips and other junk foods, they would have eaten.

To keep your cholesterol down, you can also eat hummus and whole grain foods, including crackers with cucumbers, carrots, or celery.  These foods are cholesterol free. They also provide soluble fiber, one way to lower cholesterol. In the vegetable category, eggplant, okra, beans are great. In the fruit category, apples, grapes, strawberries and citrus fruits are good.

Here’s more from Just Care:

• If you need nutrition counseling, Medicare may cover it in full
• Avoid these five foods to keep your mind sharp
• Processed foods and fast foods have bigger health risks than you might think
• Eating food high in fiber delivers many benefits
• Does exercise make you hungrier?