Fibre-rich diet lowers cholesterol
as well as drugs: Study
February 11, 2005
A diet rich in fibre and vegetables lowered cholesterol
just as much as taking a statin drug, Canadian researchers
reported Monday.
They says people who cannot tolerate the statin drugs
because of side-effects can turn to the diet, which
their volunteers could easily follow.
David Jenkins of St. Michael's Hospital and the University
of Toronto and colleagues created what they called a
diet "portfolio" high in soy protein, almonds,
and cereal fibre as well as plant sterols — tree-based
compounds used in cholesterol-lowering margarines, salad
dressing and other products.
They tested their diet on 34 overweight men and women,
comparing it with a low-fat diet and with a normal diet
plus a generic statin drug, lovastatin.
Writing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition,
Jenkins and colleagues said the low-fat diet lowered
LDL — the low-density lipoprotein or "bad"
cholesterol — by 8.5 per cent after a month. Statins
lowered LDL by 33 per cent and the "portfolio"
diet lowered LDL by nearly 30 per cent.
The portfolio was rich in soy milk, soy burgers, almonds,
oats, barley, psyllium seeds, okra and eggplant. The
Almond Board of California helped fund the study, as
did several food makers and the Canadian Natural Sciences
and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
The researchers said nine volunteers, or a quarter
of the group, got their lowest LDL levels from being
on the portfolio diet.
The volunteers all felt full on the diets although
the "portfolio" diet resulted in more bowel
movements, the researchers say.
Source:www.thestar.com
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