Berkeley Wellness Alerts
February 12, 2010 | Comments: 0
The Heart-Healthy Diet Effect
After you’ve started a heart-healthy diet, how soon can you expect to see improvements in your cholesterol levels?
Reducing saturated fat and dietary cholesterol in your diet can lower LDL (“bad”) cholesterol by 10 to 15%, according to the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) at the National Institutes of Health. Adding in other dietary changes, along with weight loss, may bring about a cumulative 20 to 30% drop in LDL—about what many people get from cholesterol-lowering drugs.
This doesn’t happen right away, though. The effect of a heart-healthy diet usually takes about four to six weeks, but it’s possible to see a change in as little as three weeks. If you’ve made dietary changes to lower your cholesterol, the NCEP recommends that you get your numbers rechecked after six weeks.
The primary goal of a heart-healthy diet is to lower LDL. How long this takes depends on what your diet was like beforehand, what changes you make, and how well you stick to the new diet. There’s also a genetic component, and some people are more responsive than others to the same heart-healthy diet. A small number of people don’t respond at all.
Keep in mind that your cholesterol readings can vary somewhat from one test to the next due to normal day-to-day fluctuations and lab imprecision. So if you don’t see much reduction after six weeks on a heart-healthy diet, don’t be discouraged. Continue making dietary changes and get tested again in another six weeks. If you don’t reach your LDL goal at that point, you may need cholesterol-lowering drugs.
The best way to adopt a heart-healthy diet is to make small changes gradually. Initially focus on reducing saturated fats and dietary cholesterol. You can also boost soluble fiber (in oats, psyllium, legumes, corn, and apples, for example) and later add plant stanols/sterols (as in special margarines and other sources) if necessary. A registered dietitian or other qualified nutritionist can help.
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