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Lower Cholesterol Naturally
Plus: 5-minute posture improvement routine
The 10almonds Team
September 01, 2024
In partnership with
It’s that time of the month again! Tomorrow it will be September the 1st, and the perfect time to make a new beginning with your healthy practices.
Pick a theme for the month (or for the season!) and plan how you’re going to improve that most important aspect of your health.
In A Rush?
Today’s 30-Second Summary
If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:
Lowering LDL (“bad” cholesterol) levels, and/or maintaining them at a healthy lower level, is important for many people.
Today’s main feature looks at the drug-free ways of going about making measurable improvements to one’s triglycerides.
We know that 10almonds readers like being presented with well-sourced information, with the ability to follow-up on it if desired.
Today’s sponsor 1440 has a similar view, different field: they specialize in presenting the news as neutrally as they can!
Today’s featured recipe is for brothy beans and greens, getting in your daily doses in the tastiest way!
Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive
A Word To The Wise
Watch and Learn
5 Minute Posture Improvement Routine!
McKay Lang walks us through it:
Prefer text? The above video will take you to a 10almonds page with a text-overview, as well as the video!
Saturday Life Hacks
Lower Cholesterol, Without Statins
We’ll start this off by saying that lowering cholesterol might not, in fact, be critical or even especially helpful for everyone, especially in the case of women. We covered this more in our article about statins:
…which was largely informed by the wealth of data in this book:
…which in turn, may in fact put a lot of people off statins. We’re not here to tell you don’t use them—they may indeed be useful or even critical for some people, as Dr. Roberts herself also makes makes clear. But rather, we always recommend learning as much as possible about what’s going on, to be able to make the most informed choices when it comes to what often might be literally life-and-death decisions.
On which note, if anyone would like a quick refresher on cholesterol, what it actually is (in its various forms) and what it does, why we need it, the problems it can cause anyway, then here you go:
Now, with all that in mind, we’re going to assume that you, dear reader, would like to know:
how to lower your LDL cholesterol, and/or
how to maintain a safe LDL cholesterol level
Because, while the jury’s out on the dangers of high LDL levels for women in particular, it’s clear that for pretty much everyone, maintaining them within well-established safe zones won’t hurt.
Here’s how:
Relax
Or rather, manage your stress. This doesn’t just reduce your acute risk of a heart attack, it also improves your blood metrics along the way, and yes, that includes not just blood pressure and blood sugars, but even triglycerides! Here’s the science for that, complete with numbers:
With that in mind, here’s…
Not chemically “relaxed”, though
While relaxing is important, drinking alcohol and smoking are unequivocally bad for pretty much everything, and this includes cholesterol levels:
Can We Drink To Good Health? ← this also covers popular beliefs about red wine and heart health, and the answer is no, we cannot
As for smoking, it is good to quit as soon as possible, unless your doctor specifically advises you otherwise (there are occasional situations where something else needs to be dealt with first, but not as many some might like to believe):
If you’re wondering about cannabis (CBD and/or THC), then we’d love to tell you about the effect these things have on heart health in general and cholesterol levels in particular, but the science is far too young (mostly because of the historic, and in some places contemporary, illegality cramping the research), and we could only find small, dubious, mutually contradictory studies so far. So the honest answer is: science doesn’t know this one, yet.
Exercise… But don’t worry, you can still stay relaxed
When it comes to heart health, the most important thing is keeping moving, so getting in those famous 150 minutes per week of moderate exercise is critical, and getting more is ideal.
240 minutes per week is a neat 40 minutes per day, by the way and is very attainable (this writer lives a 20-minute walk away from where she does her daily grocery shopping, thus making for a daily 40-minute round trip, not counting the actual shopping).
If walking is for some reason not practical for you, here’s a whole list of fun options that don’t feel like exercise but are:
Manage your hormones
This one is mostly for menopausal women, though some people with atypical hormonal situations may find it applicable too.
Estrogen protects the heart… Until it doesn’t:
Here’s a great introduction to sorting it out, if necessary:
Eat a heart-healthy diet
Shocking nobody, but it has to be said, for the sake of being methodical. So, what does that look like?
(it’s fiber in the #1 spot, but there’s a list of most important things there, that’s worth checking out and comparing it to what you habitually eat)
You can also check out the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) edition of the Mediterranean diet, here:
As for saturated fat (and especially trans-fats), the basic answer is to keep them to minimal, but there is room for nuance with saturated fats at least:
And lastly, do make sure to get enough omega 3 fatty-acids:
And enjoy plant sterols and stanols! This would need a whole list of their own, so here you go:
Take care!
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Recipes Worth Sharing
Brothy Beans & Greens
"Eat beans and greens", we say, "but how", you ask. Here's how! Tasty, filling, and fulfilling, this dish is full of protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals, and assorted powerful phytochemicals:
Click below for our full recipe, and learn its secrets:
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Wishing you a wonderfully restorative weekend,
The 10almonds Team
