The Numbers

What is your total cholesterol (TC) count? Most of my friends reply that their TC is a little high but that their doctor isn't worried since their HDL ("good" cholesterol) count is high in proportion to their LDL ("bad" cholesterol) count. I'll tell you why their doctor isn't worried- it isn't the doctor's TC! But I won't argue with you about that point. What I will tell you is that people can dramatically lower their cholesterol without drugs simply by eating smarter.

Baby steps...
A few years ago Chris and I started to eat oatmeal every morning. Chris pours boiling water into a bowl with 1/3 cup of rolled oats and lets that sit for 20 minutes. I then add a little honey, 1 cup of blueberries, and 2 T milled flax seed. Initially, I hated the flax seed because when mixed with oatmeal and water, the consistency was sticky and glutinous, like cement. Then I discovered that by adding a little more water, stirring thoroughly, and eating it almost immediately, the flax seed gave the oatmeal a nutty quality to it. I now look forward everyday to my oatmeal and flax breakfast.

Chris currently eats his oatmeal with 2 T chia seeds. But he adds his chia seeds to the dried oatmeal and lets it sit in the boiling water for the 20 minute soak.  The chia seeds give the oatmeal crunch and doesn't render it gooey like flax does. Both flax and chia seeds are excellent sources of the omega-3 fatty acid, alpha-linolenic acid (ALA).

 

Oatmeal, water, honey, and chia seeds

Since we've been eating a plant-based diet, our TC has dropped. My TC was 173 mg/dL in 2011 and has since dropped to 153 mg/dL. Chris' TC was 195 mg/dL and that has dropped to 177 mg/dL. My sister-in-law, who wishes to remain nameless so we'll call her Dennis' Wife (DW), is turning 63 in a few weeks and she just sent me her total cholesterol (TC) numbers for the last 30 years. You can see, below, that her TC was slowly creeping up to 225 after  menopause. It went down by 30 points when she took red yeast (which has the same active ingredient as statin drugs). But her most recent TC count shows that she could attain an even lower TC by following a whole foods, plant-based only regime. Yea DW!!!