Foods to lower your cholesterol

01/12/23 • 20 min

1 Listener

More than half of us have high cholesterol — and new research suggests that having even slightly raised levels in our 30s could significantly increase our chances of developing heart disease.

Medication is a common fix, but it comes with side effects. So, today we’re looking at how much changing our diets can help.

In this short (ish) episode of ZOE Science & Nutrition, Jonathan and Sarah ask: Can we lower our cholesterol by changing our diets?

Follow ZOE on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoe/

Download our FREE guide — Top 10 Tips to Live Healthier: https://zoe.com/freeguide

Studies referenced in the episode:

‘Association between Carbohydrate Intake and Serum Lipids’ from the Journal of the American Nutrition Association here
‘The Mediterranean Diet And Cardioprotection: Historical Overview And Current Research from the Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare here
‘Direct comparison of dietary portfolio vs statin on C-reactive protein’ from the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition here

This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions.

More than half of us have high cholesterol — and new research suggests that having even slightly raised levels in our 30s could significantly increase our chances of developing heart disease.

Medication is a common fix, but it comes with side effects. So, today we’re looking at how much changing our diets can help.

In this short (ish) episode of ZOE Science & Nutrition, Jonathan and Sarah ask: Can we lower our cholesterol by changing our diets?

Follow ZOE on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoe/

Download our FREE guide — Top 10 Tips to Live Healthier: https://zoe.com/freeguide

Studies referenced in the episode:

‘Association between Carbohydrate Intake and Serum Lipids’ from the Journal of the American Nutrition Association here
‘The Mediterranean Diet And Cardioprotection: Historical Overview And Current Research from the Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare here
‘Direct comparison of dietary portfolio vs statin on C-reactive protein’ from the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition here

This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions.

Previous Episode

Should we be worried about strep A?

This year, cases of an invasive bacterial infection are rising earlier than usual in the US, the UK and other countries across Europe.

The group A Streptococcus bacteria - commonly known as Strep A - usually only causes mild illness. However, things have become severe in some cases, with several children dying in recent weeks.

So, should we be worried? And what symptoms should we look out for to help us identify this illness in ourselves and our families?

In today’s episode, Jonathan is joined by world-leading expert on the subject: Shiranee Sriskandan is a professor of Infectious Diseases at Imperial College London whose scientific research focuses specifically on Strep A bacteria. Regular guest and ZOE co-founder Tim Spector also joins, and as one of the world’s top 100 most cited scientists, Tim has been closely following infectious diseases in the community through the ZOE Health Study.

Download our FREE guide — Top 10 Tips to Live Healthier: https://zoe.com/freeguide

Timecodes:

00:00 Introduction

00:10 Topic Introduction

01:40 Quickfire Questions

03:15 What is Strep?

04:04 How common is Strep?

05:02 Seasonality of Strep and symptoms in different climates

05:30 What makes this year different?

06:31 Can Strep make other illnesses worse?

07:07 We've already seen signs of Strep rising over time, is this due to lockdown?

09:36 How worried should we be about Strep infections?

10:10 Group A Strep will often get better on its own

11:07 The risk of rarer invasive infections is greater as the pool of cases increases

11:59 Immune response to Strep A can increase chances of Rheumatic Fever

13:35 What is Rheumatic Fever?

14:59 What are the symptoms of Strep A

16:53 How to treat Strep Throat

18:12 What is the relationship between Strep A and Scarlet Fever

18:53 Who gets Scarlet Fever and what are the symptoms?

19:34 What are the distinguishing features between covid and other sore throats

20:53 Do children get more fevers if they are younger?

22:54 What to do if you think your child has strep throat

24:01 Can you get rapid tests for Strep A?

24:25 Why has Strep throat been seemingly more prominent in the US than the UK

25:41 Different health services around the world and their respective responses to Strep

27:36 Should we be testing and treating?

30:15 What role does differing attitudes to healthcare play in this?

32:02 Should we be cautious about using antibiotics for Strep A?

33:51 What potential problems are there around antibiotics?

36:00 Would a vaccine be the answer to stopping Strep in its tracks?

38:41 Tim's top tips to boost your immunity this winter

41:06 Summary

Episode transcripts are available here

Read about Tim Spector’s ZOE Health Study here

Follow ZOE on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoe/

Have an idea for a podcast? Contact Fascinate Productions to bring it to life.

Next Episode

How to improve blood sugar control with exercise

Blood sugar is one of the rare nutrition topics where everyone agrees: We should avoid big peaks and dips and aim for a steady curve.

Spikes cause inflammation, accelerate aging, and lead to type 2 diabetes. Crashes make us feel moody and tired, and crave foods we don’t need.

We can control our blood sugar through what and how we eat. But something else affects our blood sugar — physical activity.

Exercise has a profound effect on your blood sugar response. Together with your food choices, being physically active helps you keep your blood sugar level even.

In this episode of ZOE Science & Nutrition, Jonathan speaks with Javier Gonzalez and Sarah Berry to find out how exercise affects our blood sugar response — even when we’re fasting — and how much exercise we need to do to benefit.

Javier Gonzalez is an associate professor of human physiology at the University of Bath whose research focuses on the interaction between diet and exercise.
Sarah Berry is one of the world's leading experts on human nutrition. She has personally run over 20 randomized clinical trials looking at how humans respond to different fats.

Download our FREE guide — Top 10 Tips to Live Healthier: https://zoe.com/freeguide

Timecodes:

00:00 - Introduction

00:12 - Topic introduction

01:39 - Quickfire questions

02:55 - Is a 30-minute walk as good as 30-minute cardio?

03:39 - What is blood sugar and why should we care about it?

05:10 - Blood sugar control throughout the day

07:43 - Why is it important to know about blood sugar?

09:01 - Blood sugar control

12:25 - How exercise affects blood sugar

14:17 - The power of fidgeting

16:12 - Effects of higher intensity exercise

17:00 - Lower intensity exercise vs higher intensity exercise

18:41 - Intermittent fasting and blood sugar

24:43 - Personalization

26:35 - What types of exercises can you do to control blood sugar?

29:12 - Cardio vs resistance training

34:21 - Blood fats & exercise

42:15 - 3 tips on leveraging exercise to control blood sugar and blood fats

43:14 - Summary

44:25 - Goodbyes

44:37 - Outro

Episode transcripts are available here.

Follow Javier on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gonzalez_jt

Follow Sarah on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drsarahberry/

Follow ZOE on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoe/

Have an idea for a podcast? Contact Fascinate Productions to bring it to life.

ZOE Science & Nutrition - Foods to lower your cholesterol

Transcript

[00:00:00] Jonathan Wolf: Hello and welcome to Zoe Shorts. The Bite-Size podcast where we discuss one topic around science and nutrition. I'm Jonathan Wolf, and today I'm joined by Dr. Sarah Berry, and today's subject is Food to Lower Cholesterol.

[00:00:21] Sarah Berry: So Jonathan, around half the adult population in the UK and the US have high cholesterol and many people are completely unaware that they have high cholesterol. Medication to reduce cholesterol is projected to be worth