Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Dietary cholesterol enters the human body via food instead of being manufactured in the liver.
Only food from animal sources has cholesterol. This includes meat, poultry, dairy and eggs.
Labeling dietary cholesterol and foods containing it as evil is a mistake. Harvards school of
public health states that dietary cholesterol has not been proven to directly affect the risk of
cardiovascular disease. The evidence for the majority of the population is simply not solid
enough (2). In fact, blood cholesterol levels are barely influenced by dietary cholesterol, but
rather by saturated fats and trans-fats in food.
When people decrease the amount of fat and cholesterol in the diet, they tend to replace fatty
foods with refined carbohydrates, sugar, and other starches. This dietary change that has been
linked to weight gain, heart disease, and changes in blood sugar and insulin levels (3-5).
It is important to keep blood cholesterol levels low, as high blood cholesterol is linked to
cardiovascular disease and stroke (1). However, this linkage cannot be made to dietary intake of
cholesterol (2). High blood cholesterol can be the result of a combination of weight gain, lack of
physical activity, or genetics (6).
Therefore, you should not be banishing food with dietary cholesterol entirely from your diet. If
you need to reduce your blood cholesterol levels, here are some suggestions (7):
Exercise
Quit smoking.
1. Isaacsohn The Role of Cholesterol Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, 2002
2. The Nutrition Source, Cholesterol - Harvard School of Public Health, 2016
3. Siri-Tarino, P.W., et al. - Saturated fatty acids and risk of coronary heart disease:
modulation by replacement nutrients - National Institute of Health, 2010
4. Hu, F.B. - Are refined carbohydrates worse than saturated fat? American Journal of
Clinical Nutrition, 2010
5. Jakobsen, M.U., et al. - Intake of carbohydrates compared with intake of saturated fatty
acids and risk of myocardial infarction: importance of the glycemic index. - American
Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2010
6. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute What causes high blood cholesterol?
National Institute of Health, 2010
7. Kathy Mcmanus How to Lower Your Cholesterol without Drugs Harvard School of
Public Health, 2016