What impact does fiber have on good and bad cholesterol?!
Question: Viscous fiber - found in oat bran, okra, eggplant, rolled barley, metamucil - causes cholesterol to be used in the two-stage process:
1. VF absorbs bile when the food goes from the stomach into the small intestine. Bile is normally used to emulsify fats, and the VF absorbs the bile, necessitating more bile to be used to emulsify the fats in your diet.
2. And, guess what is used to make bile? Cholesterol!
Hence, your liver takes out more cholesterol from your blood system to supply its bile-making needs.
This is one part of a four-pronged attack on high cholesterol.
Other prongs were:
a. Almonds every day
b. Soy products galore (& drastic reduction in animal protein intake
c. ???? (It's been a while...)
d. (already mentioned) viscous fibre
My cholesterol dropped 53% from my pre-clinical study levels when I did the non-meat version of this diet (WITHOUT any exercise!), and remain ~25% below pre-clinical study levels when I re-introduced meat into my diet. I.e. an order of magnitude reduction equivalent to taking a really strong statin drug.
Answers: Viscous fiber - found in oat bran, okra, eggplant, rolled barley, metamucil - causes cholesterol to be used in the two-stage process:
1. VF absorbs bile when the food goes from the stomach into the small intestine. Bile is normally used to emulsify fats, and the VF absorbs the bile, necessitating more bile to be used to emulsify the fats in your diet.
2. And, guess what is used to make bile? Cholesterol!
Hence, your liver takes out more cholesterol from your blood system to supply its bile-making needs.
This is one part of a four-pronged attack on high cholesterol.
Other prongs were:
a. Almonds every day
b. Soy products galore (& drastic reduction in animal protein intake
c. ???? (It's been a while...)
d. (already mentioned) viscous fibre
My cholesterol dropped 53% from my pre-clinical study levels when I did the non-meat version of this diet (WITHOUT any exercise!), and remain ~25% below pre-clinical study levels when I re-introduced meat into my diet. I.e. an order of magnitude reduction equivalent to taking a really strong statin drug.
Besides helping you have regular and healthy poopy time, soluble or viscous fibers modestly reduce LDL (bad cholesterol).
I think it gets rid of the bad stuff. That's why I have a bowl of oatmeal with fruit just about every morning for breakfast.