Do you need to eat less meat to lower your LDL levels?
TL;DR: LDL particles carry a mix of cholesterol, triglycerides, and proteins. Often, the amount of triglycerides our liver produces - and not the amount of cholesterol we eat! - determines the LDL levels in our blood. Supporting our liver & reducing triglyceride production can help lower LDL levels, regardless of your meat intake. (about 9 min read)
Tips on lowering LDL cholesterol (but not HDL):
1. Increase fiber in your diet.
2. Time your carbohydrates with your movement - reduce simple carbs (anything without fiber) when you're stuck sitting at your desk. Save carbs for before workouts (provide energy) or after workouts (restore glycogen levels).
3. Move around for 5-15min after meals.
4. Reduce stress. This includes mental overload, emotional stress, sleep deprivation, dehydration, bad vibes, or nutrient deficiencies.
5. Relieve stress. This includes taking stretch breaks/short walks throughout the day, balancing mental load, getting enough sleep, staying hydrated, and eating enough "whole foods" since they contain micronutrients.
What is LDL & where does it comes from? LDL particles contain more than just cholesterol - they are a mixture of triglycerides, cholesterol, and certain proteins. It's often called LDL-cholesterol because the biochemical assay measuring the amount of LDL particles specifically looks at the cholesterol portion, but this is a historical practice. Someone could measure the triglycerides (TGs) or the proteins to get an idea of the total LDL particles if they wanted to. In fact, it’s becoming more common to measure LDL-triglycerides or total TGs to get a measure of someone’s risk of disease, rather than total cholesterol or LDL:HDL ratios.
More LDL is made when our livers are overwhelmed with something that causes too many triglycerides (TGs) to be made and safely stored in the liver. Those excess TGs get packaged on to LDL particles and secreted into our blood system.
To reduce LDL-"cholesterol", we need to reduce how much TGs the liver is making & packaging up to put into our blood. For most people, this is not from eating too much meat. A common reason a lot of people have increased TG production comes from the liver trying to lower blood sugar levels when a person isn't moving around.
This doesn't necessarily mean that someone is eating too much sugar - it means that there is too much sugar in the bloodstream for the amount of movement we're doing at a certain time.
If a person is not gaining weight, but their LDL levels went up, there isn't a mismatch in their total food/nutrient intake vs energy expenditure. There is a mismatch between when their food/nutrient intake is happening, or when their BGLs are rising, vs. when their movement is happening.
So what can we do to lower the amount of LDL that our liver secretes into our blood? We need to match our blood glucose levels with our movement. We can do this by helping our guts absorb nutrients more effectively, reducing how many simple carbs we eat when we’re not moving, reducing cortisol levels, and taking stretch/movement breaks throughout the day. Here’s how it works:
1. Increasing fiber in your diet will help lower LDL levels. This is because fiber helps other nutrients get absorbed across your gut more slowly. Low-fiber foods that contain simple carbohydrates (aka "sugar") will get absorbed very quickly and raise your blood glucose levels (BGLs).
Your body then has to lower BGLs either by moving around (even for as little as 5-15min) or by secreting insulin. If you aren't moving, then insulin will signal to your liver & fat cells (adipose tissue) to take glucose out of the blood. The liver will store sugar first as glycogen, but once you have enough glycogen, your liver will make fats (mainly triglycerides; TGs). Some of those TGs will be secreted into your blood on LDL particles. And your serum LDL levels will rise.
2. Reducing simple carbohydrates when you are stuck at your desk will help lower LDL levels. Again, simple carbs (aka "sugar") like crackers, fruit, toast, cereal, etc., will get absorbed quickly and raise your blood glucose levels (BGLs).
If you aren't moving around, your muscles can't help stabilize your BGLs and it will be up to your pancreas to secrete insulin & your liver & fat (adipose) tissue to respond to that insulin by clearing glucose and turning it into TGs. Reducing how many simple carbs we eat when we aren't moving reduces how many TGs our liver makes and packages onto LDL particles = our serum LDL levels rise.
3. Moving around for 5-15min after meals will help lower LDL levels. Simple carbs get a lot of attention for "making people fat" but this isn't really the case. Carbs get turned into fat when the food we eat increases our BGLs but we aren't moving.
When we are moving (or have moved recently), carbs will get taken up first by our muscles and either used for energy or stored as glycogen. Carbs will be taken up by our liver next and stored as glycogen.
All of this glycogen makes it easier to have energy to move later and to keep steady BGLs when we're "fasting" (fasting = any time we go longer than ~6hrs without eating, meaning when we SLEEP or have a longer gap between meals or we're sick/recovering from illness/injury. I don't mean the fasting fads). We don't have to "burn the calories we ate" to keep them from becoming fat - we can just encourage our muscles to take glucose out of the blood & store it as glycogen.
If we don't move, then our liver will take glucose and make a little into glycogen and then the rest into TGs. Excess TG production = more LDL particles secreted from liver = our serum LDL levels rise.
4. Reducind stress will help reduce LDL levels. "Stress" always has a physiological component regardless of the initail cause. Harsh workdays, sleep deprivation, dehydration, negative vibes will all convergene on the release of more cortisol.
Cortisol prepares our body for movement. When our brains' release cortisol and we DON'T MOVE, we then have to compensate for the physiological changes that our body made in response to cortisol that prepared us for movement. This creates confusing signals inside the body and has negative health consequences.
One of the ways cortisol prepares us to move is by telling the liver to break down glycogen & release it as glucose into our blood streams. If we release cortisol, raise our BGLs, and then don't move, we need to increase how much insulin is released to bring our BGLs back in line.
More insulin also means means more glucose is taken up by the liver - which is now stuck in between being told by cortisol to breakdown glycogen & release glucose AND being told by insulin to take up glucose to make more glycogen. The liver can't successfully respond to both cortisol & insulin at once. The result is that the liver takes up glucose and makes more triglycerides (TGs) which leads to more LDL particles being packaged up & secreted out of the liver = our LDL levels rise.
Cortisol release & increased BGLs aren't a problem if we do start moving. It's only a problem is we are routinely stressed out and not moving. The other option is to reduce sources of stress and reduce overall cortisol levels.
5. Relieving stress will help reduce LDL levels. The release of cortisol and then SITTING DOWN is really tough on our bodies because it causes an imbalance & mixed signals to our organs about what they should prepare to do.
If we don't rebalance our internal signals, we end up causing inflammation. The signals that tell our body that we have unrelieved stress also tell our liver to make more triglycerides. More TGs produced = more TGs packaged onto LDL particles = increased LDL cholesterol levels.
An easy fix to this is to reduce the amount of mixed signals - getting enough sleep, staying hydrated, moving around for a few min, or taking deep breathes (box breathing, meditating for a few min) will help our bodies rebalance. Eating "whole" foods (veggies, unprocessed meats, fruits, grains) will make sure we have enough micronutrients that all our cells function properly.
