To achieve the cholesterol level necessary to prevent heart attacks, most people must take cholesterol-lowering drugs—or eat a plant-based diet.
Heart Attacks and Cholesterol: Purely a Question of Diet
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Having a total cholesterol under 200, or an LDL under 130, reduces your risk, but, as the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Cardiology wrote more than a decade ago now, it’s time to shift “from decreasing risk to actually preventing and arresting atherosclerosis.”
In an editorial last year, the editor-in-chief advocated for an LDL under 60; a total cholesterol under 150. “Whether or not we are willing to alter our diet sufficiently and/or to spend the money necessary to obtain the lipid-lowering drugs [the statins], and then take them religiously to achieve this goal is up to us.”
“For the plaque buildup in our arteries to cease, it appears that the serum total cholesterol needs to be lowered to the 150 area. In other words the serum total cholesterol must be lowered to that of the average pure vegetarian. Because relatively few persons are willing to abide by the vegetarian lifestyle, lipid-lowering drugs are required in most to reach the [target] 150 level.”
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by veganmontreal.
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- National Institutes of Health. 2004. Third Report of the Expert Panel on Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Cholesterol in Adults (Adult Treatment Panel III).
- Roberts WC. Shifting from decreasing risk to actually preventing and arresting atherosclerosis. Am J Cardiol. 1999 Mar 1;83(5):816-7.
- Roberts WC. It's the cholesterol, stupid! Am J Cardiol. 2010 Nov 1;106(9):1364-6.
- Roberts WC. Preventing and arresting coronary atherosclerosis. Am Heart J. 1995 Sep;130(3 Pt 1):580-600.
Having a total cholesterol under 200, or an LDL under 130, reduces your risk, but, as the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Cardiology wrote more than a decade ago now, it’s time to shift “from decreasing risk to actually preventing and arresting atherosclerosis.”
In an editorial last year, the editor-in-chief advocated for an LDL under 60; a total cholesterol under 150. “Whether or not we are willing to alter our diet sufficiently and/or to spend the money necessary to obtain the lipid-lowering drugs [the statins], and then take them religiously to achieve this goal is up to us.”
“For the plaque buildup in our arteries to cease, it appears that the serum total cholesterol needs to be lowered to the 150 area. In other words the serum total cholesterol must be lowered to that of the average pure vegetarian. Because relatively few persons are willing to abide by the vegetarian lifestyle, lipid-lowering drugs are required in most to reach the [target] 150 level.”
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by veganmontreal.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
- National Institutes of Health. 2004. Third Report of the Expert Panel on Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Cholesterol in Adults (Adult Treatment Panel III).
- Roberts WC. Shifting from decreasing risk to actually preventing and arresting atherosclerosis. Am J Cardiol. 1999 Mar 1;83(5):816-7.
- Roberts WC. It's the cholesterol, stupid! Am J Cardiol. 2010 Nov 1;106(9):1364-6.
- Roberts WC. Preventing and arresting coronary atherosclerosis. Am Heart J. 1995 Sep;130(3 Pt 1):580-600.
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Heart Attacks and Cholesterol: Purely a Question of Diet
LicenseCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Content URLDoctor's Note
Be sure to check out all my other videos on heart disease and statins.
For more context, check out my associated blog posts: Generic Lipitor is not the answer to our heart disease epidemic; The Most Anti-Inflammatory Mushroom; Preventing and Treating Kidney Failure With Diet; Stool Size and Breast Cancer Risk; and Cholesterol Lowering in a Nut Shell.
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