Eating right works like drugs in lowering blood cholesterol

Earth Times

I like how this site calls a near-vegan diet "eating right." Granted, I'd prefer an all-vegan diet, but the diet prescribed in this study is so much closer than the standard American diet that it is definitely eating righter:

Over a year, the 66 participants ate a soy-rich diet featuring almonds, fruit, vegetables, beans, psyllium, oat bran and other high fiber foods. They were also urged to avoid dairy products or limit their consumption to low-fat or fat-free products. Knowing that participants who regularly ate lean meat, poultry and fish, would find the diet tough to follow, hence they were encouraged to limit such foods to fewer than three meals a week.

Although recent research says that soy is not very helpful in reducing cholesterol, it was a key feature in the diet because it effectively substitutes animal products.

The high fiber foods significantly helped lower LDL levels. More than 30 percent of the group who followed the diet closely benefited with their LDL levels lowered by more than 20 percent. Such improvement was seen until now only after a course of low-dose statins, the researchers said.

Categories: study | research | vegan | health | nutrition | cholesterol | statins