Good evening, Jordan. I have a question regarding lowering my cholesterol through diet. I’m 34 years old, and I just had a yearly preventative visit with my doctor. I had a lipid panel, and here are the results:
I just finished a weight loss phase, so I was eating 40% protein at every meal, but just switched to 30% per meal, now that I’m maintaining my weight. I use a meal prep app to make my meal prep easier, and there are different diet plans on there. I’ve been using the high-protein plan, but was wondering if I should switch to the Mediterranean diet plan on there. I’ve heard that it’s really good for heart health, which obviously I’m looking to improve.
Do you think this would be a good option for me?
I don’t want to give up meat, but I think the reduced meat consumption of the Mediterranean diet might help lower my saturated fat intake, and replace it with more PUFAS and MUFAS and increase my intake of fiber.
The information below is based off 3,200 Calorie per day intake:
average intake of Saturated Fat is 37.2 grams per day
average intake of Fiber is 31.4 grams per day
so would you recommend the Mediterranean Diet to lower blood cholesterol levels? (Blood pressure is 111/66, and I have a BMI of 23.8 with a waist circumference of 34)
Thank you so much in advance, as I realize you’re a very busy individual
I don’t know that the med. diet is going to be significantly lower in saturated fat intake. Even if it is, it may not be enough to matter given that the diet you posted is ~ 10% of total cals from saturated fats. In short, I’m not sure you’re eating enough saturated fat to see a benefit from reducing it.
Increased fiber, particularly from fruits, vegetables, legumes, and oatmeal, could be useful. Adding a dietary fiber supplement on top of this may be useful too. I’m not sure that eating less meat is likely to be useful unless that co-occurs with eating more vegetables. That said, eating more vegetables and the same amount of meat would likely work to. Another consideration is that during periods of active weight loss, cholesterol tests aren’t terribly accurate. Depending on the timing here, that is another variable.
Hope that’s helpful. Let us know if you could use a consultation or a more active management from someone on our team!
The American Heart Association recommends aiming for a dietary pattern that achieves 5% to 6% of calories from saturated fat. Are you saying that’s unnecessarily low or are you saying the difference between 5-6% and 10% isn’t all that meaningful (or something else)?
Thanks for that advice, Jordan. I’m hoping that going from 40% protein, 30% fat, and 30% carbs to 30% protein, 40% carbs, and 30% fat lowers my saturated fat intake a little and increases my fiber intake, as I would be prefer a balanced diet to the Mediterranean diet. I was not aware that you offered medical services…
Only place I see that is in a blog post, but not their actual dietary recommendations, which ironically do not give a percentage.
In any case, we don’t know if lowering saturated fatty acid intake from 10% to 5-6% has additional benefits, as existing data doesn’t really support this. I would not make this additional limitation in someone trying to reduce their heart disease risk.
We do not practice telemedicine through Barbell Medicine, but are available to provide information regarding medical conditions in addition to training, nutrition, etc.
I do not predict that the changes in macronutrient percentages will in and of themselves will lower sat. fat intake and increase fiber, as there’s really not a big difference here. Rather, I think replacing some foods with higher fiber versions, e.g. legumes in place of rice, fish in place of red meat, etc. would likely be the move here
It’s in a few places in the AHA article “Recommended Dietary Pattern to Achieve Adherence to the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology (AHA/ACC) Guidelines: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association”:
“American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology guideline advocates replacement of saturated fatty acids above 5% to 6% of total calories polyunsaturated fatty acids and/or monounsaturated fatty acids without exceeding total energy needs to ensure weight management.” https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000462
Yea, the article I cited was the update to the one you linked here by about 5 years. As I said, we don’t know that lowering intake further makes a difference. I’m comfortable saying that given the current evidence.
