Eating lightly and cholesterol is still high, afraid of bursting blood vessels? Nutritionist: "This thing" is more likely to affect blood cholesterol

Excessive cholesterol will increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, but why do you stop eating high cholesterol foods such as egg yolks and seafood, and eat light foods, but your cholesterol is still too high? What to do with high cholesterol? Nutritionist Liu Suying pointed out that 70% to 80% of cholesterol is synthesized by the body itself, and diet only accounts for 20 to 30%. Even if you don't eat any cholesterol foods, you may have high cholesterol problems.

Liu Suying said that cholesterol is only found in animal foods and is one of the most important building materials for the body. Cholesterol not only constitutes cell membranes, but can also be converted into bile acids to aid in fat digestion and absorption. It is also the raw material for the body to synthesize vitamin D, male hormones, female hormones and stress hormones and other steroid hormones. In order to ensure that the body has enough cholesterol raw materials to perform its functions, the body also Cholesterol is synthesized.

Types of fats and soluble fiber in fruits and vegetables can affect blood cholesterol levels

In addition to cholesterol in food, there are many dietary factors that also affect blood cholesterol levels, such as types of fats and soluble fiber in fruits and vegetables. Water-soluble fiber can adsorb bile acid, reduce the reabsorption of bile acid, and then achieve the purpose of "lowering cholesterol". Saturated and trans fats increase cholesterol, while unsaturated fats help lower cholesterol. Therefore, the use of oils containing "unsaturated fatty acids", most vegetable oils except coconut oil, instead of oils rich in saturated fats, such as tallow lard and other animal oils, can help lower cholesterol.

Foods with higher cholesterol levels are more harmful to cardiovascular

Liu Suying supplements, the public can also refer to the "Cholesterol IndexChoose food. Cholesterol Index (CSI) = cholesterol content x 0.05 + saturated fat content x 1.01. From the index, it can be found that the impact of saturated fat is much higher than that of cholesterol. Foods with a higher "cholesterol index" are more harmful to cardiovascular disease. Therefore, those with high blood cholesterol should try to consume foods with a lower "cholesterol index".

Cholesterol only comes from animal foods, staple foods (grains and roots), soy products in meat, vegetables and fruits and other plant foods, because they do not contain saturated fat and cholesterol, so the "cholesterol index" is very high. However, because saturated fat affects cholesterol, the "cholesterol index" of plant-based foods rich in fat will be higher than that of ordinary plant-based foods.

Among the vegetable foods rich in fat, general vegetable oils such as soybean oil and olive oil, as well as nut seeds and other foods have a lower "cholesterol index" and can be used with peace of mind; however, more than 90% of coconut oil is saturated fat, while vegetable oils Cream is hydrogenated and contains a lot of saturated fat. High oleic palm oil is rich in saturated fat, which leads to a high "cholesterol index" and is not recommended for use.

Saturated fat affects blood cholesterol more than cholesterol

Liu Suying said that milk, eggs, fish, shellfish and seafood, livestock, poultry and animal oils not only contain cholesterol, but also saturated fat, so it will affect blood cholesterol. The effect of saturated fat on blood cholesterol is greater than that of cholesterol itself, so animal foods with low saturated fatty acid content, such as fresh milk, general fish and shellfish, seafood or lean meat, or when eating skinless and fattened meat, "raises the cholesterol index". ” will be relatively low.

Liu Suying added that although eggs are high in cholesterol and their "cholesterol index" is not low, they are rich in nutrients, lecithin, and mono/polyunsaturated fatty acids that can help lower cholesterol, and dietary cholesterol only accounts for Blood cholesterol is about 1/4, so healthy people have no problem with one egg a day, and they don't need to remove the yolk and only eat the white when eating eggs.

◎ Image source/Dazhi Image/Shutterstock ◎ Source/Liu Suying nutritionist