What to do when your dad has high cholesterol

I typically talk about women’s health, but when my dad called me recently with a “dietitian emergency” I decided to blog about it. My dad had his annual physical that showed he had elevated cholesterol. This is something you want to monitor no matter your age, or gender, because it gives us some insight into your health. It should also be noted it’s more than just heart health.

First, let’s chat about what cholesterol is and why it shouldn’t be feared. Cholesterol is a substance that the body makes in the liver and is found in ALL cells of the body. So in other words, we need cholesterol so it shouldn’t be avoided. We use it for making hormones, digesting fatty foods, building cell membranes, creating vitamin D and to create bile which is very important for digestion.

If you don’t have enough cholesterol you can run into some problems just like if you have too much cholesterol. However, contrary to what you have probably been told, if you have high cholesterol, it doesn’t mean you should avoid it. Your body will make it anyway so that right there tells you that eating sources of cholesterol isn’t necessarily the problem. Diet itself does play a role of course, but not in the way we used to think. In fact, enough research has been done on dietary cholesterol that the Dietary Guidelines removed the recommendations of “limiting cholesterol to 300 mg a day”. Research no longer supports this statement (PMID: 29914176) So, you don’t have to decrease cholesterol intake as little as possible especially if there is no genetic component.

OK, now let’s get into the action steps. First thing to do is make sure that you're getting all the cholesterol labs. You want to look at total cholesterol, LDL, HLD, triglycerides and then a few ratios to get the whole picture. From there you want to dig deeper into why cholesterol isn’t in a healthy range. For example, you want to look at insulin levels. Are insulin levels high? That can be a reason for cholesterol. Are minerals low or high? That can impact healthy cholesterol levels.  

Once you know the why the next step is to look at dietary intake. This has a major impact on insulin levels, mineral levels and then cholesterol. So, while nutrition plays a big role in healthy cholesterol levels, it’s not because of eating too much cholesterol.

Here are my top nutrition recommendations for healthy cholesterol levels: 

·      Eat high quality protein sources for every meal (don’t fear eggs or meat)

·      Avoid inflammatory oils like vegetable oils

·      Eat vegetables to get adequate fiber

·      Eat fruit for more mineral intake

·      Consider supplements like magnesium to support healthy insulin levels

The last step would be to add in smart exercise. I say smart because starting to run every day or join an extreme gym isn’t always the answer. Simply adding a walk after meal to get movement, lower blood sugar and promote healthy insulin levels will all lead to healthier cholesterol levels.

A side note for women: if you're reading this because maybe your mom has high cholesterol, I would dive into thyroid health. Thyroid health is still important for men, but I see it more commonly with women because that's who I work with more often. I typically see a slower thyroid correlated with higher cholesterol, and I sometimes see it with lower cholesterol too which is a concern. So, either way if your mom's cholesterol is not an ideal range, really dive into thyroid health to help.

Cholesterol is probably one of the most misunderstood and confusing topics especially if your doctor is giving you recommendations that are opposite of what a dietitian is recommending. Remember, doctors do not specialize in nutrition most of them do not get more than one credit hour of education. They also don't have the time to keep up on the latest nutrition research. That's why other specialties exist so they you can get more specific recommendations.  

Lastly, if your dad or mom would like a dietitian to help them read their labs and go through their nutrition recommendations, have them e-mail me (kelseyscot.co@gmail.com) I do al le cart consults for someone that already have labs and does not need to dive in deeper into hormones weight loss pregnancy infertility acne PMS etc.  If they are simply needing a general nutrition guide because their lab results show that they had higher cholesterol, I would love to do a consult!