Bonus: Beans! Beans! They're Good For Your Heart: Cholesterol 101

HEYO! Surprise Tuesday bonus pod alert!!

Lucy and I are back to take a deep dive into whether a diagnosis of 'high cholesterol' means you need to go on a diet.

Listener M wrote in with the question: I'm very interested in the correlation between high cholesterol and what we eat. It seems to me that the high cholesterol always comes with the diet stuff. Less red meat, less fat in the diet, etc. Is this really true? It feels very shameful to have high cholesterol that you have somehow behaved badly. A sign (almost like being fat) that there is something wrong with you. (Or your diet.) Can you clear this up for me?'

We went deep and discussed:

🫘 What a diagnosis of 'high cholesterol' really means
♥️ What function cholesterol plays in the body (and why we need it!)
🫘 The difference between HDL and LDL cholesterol (and why you can'd ascribe moral value to molecules that float around in your blood)
♥️ Whether weight-loss actually helps lower cholesterol
🫘 Some social and structural reasons we might experience higher LDL cholesterol
♥️ How we can support our heart health sans diets
🫘 Gentle nutrition pointers and some great recipe ideas for caring for ourselves if we have 'wonky' cholesterol

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