A diet incorporating foods that lower cholesterol like soybeans, walnuts and plants sterols can function better in reducing cholesterol levels than a traditional low-fat diet.
A new study shows that people with high cholesterol accompanied the portfolio diet, which includes a combination of lowered cholesterol foods, reduced low density lipoprotein cholesterol levels (LDL) in about 13% after six months on the diet. This is compared to a reduction of 3% LDL among those who have followed a low-low saturated fat diet.
"Given that cardiovascular disease is our great killer, we feel that many people will benefit to a greater or lesser extent, adopting this diet, which is basically a plant based on plants," says researcher David Jenkins , MD, Canada's research chair at the University of Toronto. "Those who may want to follow the diet more specifically are those who are in the cusp for the treatment of statin."
"If we let people know they can control their own cholesterol levels, we are putting part of responsibility, but also the power back in the hands of ordinary citizens," says Jenkins.
Carnivore Diet Fat Loss - Portfolio Diet Beats Low-Fat Diet at Lowering Cholesterol
The portfolio diet includes four types of food recognized by the FDA for your ability to reduce cholesterol:
- Soy protein. The portfolio diet requires replacing meat-based meat products such as soybeans, soybean dogs and soybean cuts. Soy and soy milk (also known as edamame) are also good sources of soy protein.
- sticky fiber. The diet incorporates fiber oats, barley and psyllium.
- Sterolium esters. The diet replaces the butter and margarine with the margarine enriched in the sterol plant.
- NUTS. A handful one day of nuts, such as almonds or nuts, and peanuts are included in the diet.
In the study, the researchers compared the effectiveness of the portfolio diet for a low fat diet in reducing LDL cholesterol in 351 people with high cholesterol. The results appear in the magazine of the American Medical Association.
People were randomly divided into three groups that received counseling on the portfolio diet in two sessions or seventh seven more intensive over a period of six months or followed a standard low fat diet by six months.
The study showed that the regular diet group and intensively advised by the portfolio experienced a reduction in LDL cholesterol of about 13% compared to a 3% reduction in the low-fat diet group.
Jenkins says that the study suggests that the plant-based food mixing included in the portfolio diet can achieve cholesterol reduction results similar to what can be reached through drugs.
But what experts say it is more surprising about the study is that a counseling session every three months was as effective as sessions Monthly dietary counseling in helping people decrease cholesterol.
"The actually remarkable result is that these cholesterol reduction results were achieved after only a few counseling sessions," says Mike Miller, MD, Medical Professor, Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Maryland. "We usually do not see these types of results."
Miller says the next question will be if these results can be kept beyond the first six months of the diet and if people can get motivated for the diet.
Dietista registered Jeannie GazzaNiga-Maloo, PhD, Rd, agrees.
"It may be quite possible that there may be something very simple about the portfolio diet that people are able to follow and get this effect," says GazzaNiga-Meloo, an American Dietetic Association spokesman. "But in my practice, take people to change animal to soy protein can be quite challenge, and people need encouragement."
gazza-maloo says people tend to respond to positive dietary messages and an advantage of the portfolio diet is that it says: "let's bring nuts, vegetables and plants sterols."
"What is something proactive instead of just taking the saturated fat of the diet," she says WebMD. "It is possibly why the diet is so well accepted."
