| | What Doctors Don't Tell You: Cholesterol tests - What to do instead | |
A high cholesterol count will almost certainly send you down the road of a lifelong prescription of statins and a criminally low-fat diet.
First, look to your intake of high-sugar and processed foods, and eliminate foods with a high glycaemic index (GI; able to convert to sugar rapidly). One important Harvard study showed that high-sugar carbohydrates lower HDL cholesterol (Lancet, 1999; 353: 1045-8). Many diabetic patients find that their cholesterol levels normalise when they cut high GI foods from their diet (see this month’s Viewpoint, p 9).