Does Oatmeal Lower Cholesterol?
If you have been diagnosed with unhealthy cholesterol levels, meaning your LDL is high and your HDL is low, then you may be wondering does oatmeal lower cholesterol? Perhaps you’ve seen the boxes marked ‘heart healthy’ in the grocery store and wondered if it was really true, or just some ploy by the marketers of dry goods to get you to eat something that has been nicely packaged with the face of a Quaker man with a funny blue hat.
The truth of the matter when asking “does oatmeal lower cholesterol?” is that if you suffer from hypertension, arterial degeneration, are concerned about heart disease, including heart attack and stroke, or concerned about depression as a result of diminished heart health, then you need to eat more oatmeal. Oatmeal contains naturally occurring soluble fibers that allow the body to more easily reduce LDL (bad cholesterol) and increase HDL (good cholesterol).
So does oatmeal lower cholesterol? Even though eating more oatmeal won’t solve the problem all on its own, it can help. If you include the following behaviors, or lifestyle changes, in addition to increasing your intake of oats, bran, barley and amaranth, then you can expect to enjoy better heart health and lower cholesterol:
- Stop consuming alcohol and smoking. Both actions increase LDL cholesterol by over-straining the liver.
- Only take pharmaceutical statin medications if you have tried everything else first. Many homeopathic or natural cures are available for lowering cholesterol.
- Aside from weight, you should aim to keep a body mass index (BMI) of around 18.5 and 24.9, depending on if you are a man or woman.
- Exercise at least 30 minutes a day, and 60-90 minutes five times a week. This will help you to maintain your body weight and thus keep your cholesterol levels normal.
- Eat a healthy diet, including oatmeal, but also the other grains mentioned herein as well as lots of fruits and vegetables, lean meats, and nuts (high in Omega 3s), olive oil, and B vitamins.
You should consider starting these changes now before you suffer from diabetes and depression in addition to high LDL cholesterol, since there has been a link between the two in recent studies. If you eat just 8-15 grams of soluble fiber daily, the kind you find in oatmeal, you can expect to decrease your LDL cholesterol by up to 60%. So does oatmeal lower cholesterol? Absolutely, the man on the box with the funny blue hat is your friend.
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