I eat cheese every day, mostly because it’s cheap and easy to eat with a toast.
Wondering if changing my regular dairy and cheese for low fat versions would be enough.
Recent research has shown cholesterol levels aren’t really caused by dietary fat intake.
It’s largely influenced by genetics, and by other things, especially glucose instability.
When blood glucose levels vary wildly - e.g. eating a high carb meal spikes it, which causes the pancreas to release a lot of insulin at once to cope with the sudden glucose increase, which then signals EVERY cell to “use glucose!”, including fat cells which are very efficient at storing glucose as fat. Since carbs are metabolized quickly, glucose levels drop quickly because of that initial insulin spike.
Those sudden high blood glucose levels apparently cause vascular injury, and cholesterol is used to basically form a patch on the artery wall so it’s protected while it heals. Keep cycling glucose levels, and you’ll have high cholesterol levels as the body heals the vascular system. Looking at the last 40 years (starting in the 80’s), what’s the dietary advice been? Less fat, more carbs. And we wonder why we’re seeing more diabetes and cardiovascular disease?
Also, high cholesterol on its own is only a single metric (just like blood pressure - there’ve been Olympic athletes with high cholesterol and high blood pressure…) - there’s lots more going on, and it all needs to be considered. Franky I don’t worry about cholesterol, as the single thing we can all do that has major impact to every system in our bodies, is to eat in a way to keep glucose levels stable.
I say this as someone with Type II diabetes in my immediate family, I have hypoglycemia, and Type I in the extended family. I’ve had to study up a lot over the last 20 years to keep family and myself healthy and safe.
A good intro on these things is a book by Barry Sears called “The Zone”, published in about 1994 (ignore all other Zone books, they’re marketing garbage). He’s a chemist who saw heart disease in relatively young people in his family, and went back to school for a biochemistry doctorate because he didn’t want to die young.
It seems the Zone diet is not scientifically proven though? based on https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_diet
Talk to a dietician, dairy is far from the only source of cholesterol. You’ll need to write down a detailed food-diary and log every meal, snack, beverage etc. to receive an informed answer.
Low-fat cheese is horrible, tbh. It’s like eating slices of vinyl eraser, and does not spark cheese-joy. Cardio-risk-wise it’s like getting healthy by smoking half-length cigarettes: everybody loses.
There’s no good alternatives that fill every niche, but humnmus is a damn good start. It’s got (good) fat and protein and it’s salty and umami, and feels like you’ve actually eaten something.
I echo the other commenter and recommend speaking with a “registered dietician” (RD degree) about your personal nutrition goals.
Calories in/out, physical activity levels, and genetics are three of the biggest factors with blood cholesterol levels. Would you overall eat fewer calories if you switched to low fat dairy? Maybe then it’s a decent strategy for you.
Harvard’s Nutrition Source is a great educational resource about nutrition that is science based and uses accessible language.
Tbh nothing lowered it for me until they put me on a statin. Genetics are a bitch. But maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough diet-wise? I don’t know.
