Weekly Healthy Advice From VÄXA

Get the Facts on Cholesterol

Thanks to the marketing budgets of the makers of cholesterol reducing drugs, most people know a thing or two about cholesterol. Unfortunately, those few things we think we know as fact may not necessarily be true.

Cholesterol: Fact v. Fiction

Fiction: Cholesterol is bad and should be avoided at all costs.
Fact: All cholesterol is truly not bad for you. In the early 1990s, Americans were told that eating egg yolks would send your LDL (bad cholesterol) numbers through the roof. As it turns out, the more likely candidate for launching your LDL numbers is consuming the hydrogenated oils that are used to make most processed foods. The real truth is that rancid fats are far more likely to tip your cholesterol numbers into an unhealthy balance than are the healthy fats found in natural foods, like eggs, fatty fish and nuts.

Fiction: Cholesterol medications are required for getting your cholesterol under control
Fact: Despite what you may have heard on many popular television ads, balancing your HDL (good cholesterol) and LDL (bad cholesterol) can generally be accomplished through diet, exercise and other lifestyle modifications.

Fiction: Red yeast rice extract is the only natural effective cholesterol management available.
Fact: Depending on the fermentation process of your red yeast rice supplement, you might not be getting the cholesterol-lowering benefit you're hoping for. In 2001, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) determined that standardized red yeast rice extract possessed strong chemical similarities to the drug lovastatin, which is proprietarily owned by a major pharmaceutical company. As such, many companies that offer red yeast rice extract have changed their fermentation process so it does not contain lovastatin.