ANN ARBOR, MI (UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN HEALTH) - Around one in five Americans have high cholesterol, which increases the risk of heart disease the longer it goes untreated. And around one-third of people that have high cholesterol are completely unaware of the problem. Doctors at the University of Michigan Health’s Frankel Cardiovascular Center says there are simple ways to lower cholesterol and improve your health.
“Most people understand that LDL cholesterol is the so-called bad cholesterol that we're all aware of. And there's a lot of things that can make that go higher or lower. By far the biggest factor that contributes though is diet and we know the unhealthy things highly processed foods, and also high saturated fats, those contribute to cholesterol going up much higher. And we can control that with better diet,” says Dr. Eric Brandt, director of preventative cardiology at the Frankel Cardiovascular Center.
Brandt says some studies have shown that a whole food and plant-based diet can lower cholesterol by as much as 30% in a few weeks. However, for some, high cholesterol can also run in families and can cause heart disease even earlier in life. Brandt says it’s important to screen for it early and to manage what is in your control.
“I like to tell people, we inherit two things, we inherit our genetics for our family, and our lifestyle, only one of those we can control,” adds Dr. Bryant. “And from research, what we know is that good lifestyle, even among those that are at high genetic risk, can lower the risk for heart events by over half. So, we're not doomed by our genetics, we can do a lot to control that risk through a healthy lifestyle.”
In addition to lifestyle changes, high cholesterol is often treated with statins, which can be tolerated by most people.
