What to do if total cholesterol is high

Total cholesterol is the sum of all cholesterol. Total cholesterol may be high or low, but high total cholesterol is most likely due to liver and lung diseases. As for what to do if your total cholesterol is too high, you must pay attention to diet control and eat less animal offal.

1. Eat less foods high in cholesterol

Eat less or no foods with extremely high cholesterol content, such as animal offal and egg yolks, and control the cholesterol intake in your diet (less than 300 mg per day). The cholesterol in the blood is mainly (70%) synthesized by the liver, and only a small part (30%) comes from food. Therefore, simply reducing cholesterol intake cannot fundamentally treat high cholesterol, but controlling the cholesterol intake in food is still helpful in lowering cholesterol.

2. Eat less high-fat foods

Eat less fatty meat and animal oil to reduce the intake of saturated fat. Saturated fat is widely found in meat, eggs, and dairy products, especially in fatty meat, animal oils, and offal. Saturated fat has the effect of increasing low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) in the blood, and its effectiveness is even greater than that of cholesterol itself.

3. Eat more vegetables, fruits, fungi and algae

Such foods as konjac, fungus, kelp, wakame, onion, pumpkin, sweet potato, etc. These foods are rich in dietary fiber and help the excretion of cholesterol. The function of dietary fiber is to absorb more bile acid metabolites so that they can be excreted instead of being recycled. In this way, the liver "has to" use more cholesterol to synthesize bile acid to make up for the loss of bile acid. A large number of studies have confirmed that increasing dietary fiber intake has a clear effect in lowering cholesterol.

4. Eat more vitamins

Patients with high total cholesterol should eat more foods containing vitamin C and vitamin E. Although this cannot lower high total cholesterol, it can protect blood vessels.

5. Eat more fish oil and lecithin

It has the effect of lowering blood lipids, but its effect is mainly on elevated triglycerides, and its effect on lowering cholesterol is smaller (of course, it is still useful).