Understanding Cholesterol & How to Optimize Your Levels with JJ Virgin

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We want to make sure that when we're lowering cholesterol, we're lowering the big bad guys, the small dense LDLs, while keeping the fluffies up and around.

Here's JJ Virgin Triple Board Certified Nutrition and Fitness Expert and four time New York Times best selling author. It's time to reignite wellness.

Welcome to Friday Q and A. All right, I got a question here from Gail Arbiter who asked what are one to two things to lower cholesterol? So the first thing that we want to talk about before we talk about lowering cholesterol is saying we really it's not about lowering cholesterol, it's about making sure that you have more big, fluffy HDL and LDL and very little of the small dense LDL and hdl. So that means we're going to look at cholesterol very differently than we have in the past. When you're going to look at all of these blood markers, you want to look at a couple things. You want to look at lp, that's the most atherogenic and the biggest predictor actually of of heart disease and heart attack risk is lp. So we want at that one. We want to look not just at LDL and hdl, but we also want to look at particle size and number because the big fluffies in either of those categories aren't the issue. It's the small dense ones that pit your endothelial lining and create the plaquing and problems. Then you also want to look at your homocysteine levels, fibrinogen. You want to look at APOE 4 for genetics, APOE A and B. All right, I know I'm rolling through all this stuff, of course, blood sugar, insulin, hemoglobin, A1C. So what we'll do is we will put these all in a document@jjvirgin.com questions is where we put all this stuff. And of course you also want to look at serum ferritin. So we want to make sure that when we're lowering cholesterol, we're lowering the big bad guys, the small dense LDLs, while keeping the fluffies up and around and that's one of the big questions with statin drugs is because it's not really, we're not seeing in the studies any real risk reduction in taking them. The question really is which type are they reducing? And it looks like they're not reducing the nasty ones. They might be lowering ldl, but they're lowering the protective LDL while keeping the bad ones around. So this is why we want to make sure we're getting the whole picture here. So what can you do? Couple things. I always like to start with food and so foods rich in soluble fiber, things like legumes, certified gluten free oats, brussels sprouts, my extra fiber nuts and seeds, freshly ground flax seeds, sesame seeds, chia especially freshly ground flaxseed and sesame seeds which are rich in lignans, which are polyphenol that's been shown to help lower cholesterol. And all of this can be super helpful. Of course. Also making an oil change and making sure you're getting anti inflammatory fats, especially omega threes from cold water fish and supplemental omega 3s because they can lower triglycerides. Obviously do not add sugar to your food. Breakthrough Carb intolerance and sugar impact diet. Go through this extensively and then supplement wise. Annattotoka Trienols is an amazing supplement that may reduce cholesterol by as much as 15 to 20%, the bad ones, not the good ones. So there's some simple things that you can do. I will put into the show. Notes, lab tests, recommendations, jjvirgin.com questions and also another tocotrienols. I'll put that in there as well so you can get information on that. And again, I want you to think differently about cholesterol. It's not about lowering it. It's about having the right combination, the right balance. All right, and while we're at it, let's also answer this question from Bettina Christensen Ambrosio. Let's see. Bettina Christensen d'. Ambrosio. Wow, beautiful name. Says, are any fruits better than others aside from green bananas, my favorite fruits? First of all, eat seasonal, local and organic. That's the first thing that we want to do is try to eat as seasonal as possible. The reason I like green bananas and you've been hearing me talk about them is green bananas are an entirely different food than super ripe bananas because of the sugar content. Green bananas are rich in something called resistant starch. Name that because it resists digestion and helps raise something called butyric acid that can help you burn fat Yay. All right, what else do I love? Well, what's awesome about fruit are the antioxidants that you're getting from them, and that comes from the colors. That's why you want to have a variety of them and the fibers. So blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, and then a lot of the different citrus fruits, melons, all great. Where fruit gets in trouble is when you dry it out to make it candy, when you juice it to make it soda, or when you condense it to make it syrup. This is when you make a good thing bad. 1 to 2 servings of fruit a day is not a bad thing. But kicking all that in is going to give you a big hit of fructose, and that can raise your triglycerides. We just talked about cholesterol. That's a big problem there. So super important is you're eating, eating fresh or frozen fruit. And I really love frozen fruit because if you bought any berries ever, you probably noticed that if you don't eat them in a timely fashion, you end up with berry mold. Icky, moldy berries. So frozen fruit is generally frozen at the height at its peak, so it gets its top nutrients and antioxidants in there. It's super convenient. So we have. We have dark cherries and berries, no sugar added, of course, in our freezer, so we can put it into our smoothies. We also freeze green bananas, and we freeze up avocado. So we have all of that in there to throw into our smoothies to make it super simple, and can throw avocados on in there because they're actually a fruit, which is so weird to me anyway. And don't also forget, like, some of the different citrus fruits, especially the white parts of them that are so good for us. Okay, cool. Make sure that you're eating the whole fruit. Don't go mess with it and make a good thing bad. If you've got questions, I've got answers. And if you want more from this episode, go to jjvirgin.com questions I'll put the resources there. And if you'd like to ask me a question, jump on over to Facebook or Instagram or leave a review, and you can leave a question there, too. All right, see you next time.

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