What drives Cholesterol levels, and what can be done about it?
The solution is obvious. In America, food is the leading cause of disease burden. Poor eating habits are caused by systems that make poor eating habits the norm for the majority of Americans and increased cholesterol levels.
If we want to cut down on Cholesterol and we must take care of our eating habits.
Anyway, there are many things we can do on a daily basis, and one of them is listed below, which, according to one study, considerably lowers cholesterol levels.
A new randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind crossover trial found that taking the freeze-dried strawberry powder for four weeks may lower LDL cholesterol levels by almost 5 percent.
According to researchers from the University of Arizona, Lafayette College, Texas Tech University, and Pennsylvania State University, a daily dose comparable to around one serving of fresh strawberries per day was also linked to a nearly 3 percent reduction in total cholesterol.
The latest research, which was published in the Journal of the American Nutrition Association, adds to the list of strawberries’ and extracts’ potential heart health advantages. In 2010, Oklahoma State University researchers found that eight weeks of supplementation with freeze-dried strawberry powder was linked to an 11 percent drop in LDL cholesterol levels in obese persons.
A year ago, a trial in overweight women found that freeze-dried strawberry powder could lower total and LDL cholesterol levels by 5 percent and 6 percent, respectively.
Despite the improvements in LDL and total cholesterol, no other CVD risk factors, such as blood pressure or triglyceride levels, were influenced by strawberry eating, according to the new study.
Furthermore, the researchers found that a smaller quantity of freeze-dried strawberry powder (13 grams per day) generated better benefits than a higher dose of 40 grams per day.
The researchers selected 20 middle-aged overweight or obese persons (mean age = 50) to participate in their clinical trial, which was led by Chesney Richter of the University of Arizona. The individuals, who had moderately raised LDL cholesterol levels, were randomly assigned to one of three groups for four weeks: no supplementation (control group), low (13 g per day), or high dose (40 g per day). Before moving on to the next group, each intervention was separated by a two-week “washout” period.
The low dose group’s LDL cholesterol levels fell by 4.9 percent compared to the high dose group, but the difference was not significant when compared to the control group.
When compared to the high-dose and control groups, the low-dose group showed substantial reductions in total cholesterol (TC) of 2.8 percent and 2.4 percent, respectively.
The researchers also discovered that the effects of freeze-dried strawberries may be influenced by inflammatory condition. When patients with chronic inflammation, as measured by elevated levels of CRP (C-reactive protein), were excluded from the study, they discovered that strawberry supplementation had a greater impact on LDL, as well as improvements in non-HDL cholesterol levels. Low-dose strawberry supplementation resulted in significant reductions in tiny VLDL particles and LDL size.
Other findings of the study “indicate that acute and/or ongoing CRP elevation may cause changes in other physiological measures and dampen the effect of strawberry supplementation.”
More research is needed to explain these potential dose-response implications, assess the function of baseline health state, and look into effects on other developing CVD risk factors such as the gut flora, said the authors.
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