high cholesterol

I found out today that my daughter who will be 9 next saturday has slightly elivated cholesterol. This is only a big deal because of the HUGE amount of heart disease in both of our familys, mine and her dads. I know to change her diet but I have no idea what to feed her. I dont even know what to feed me and I have been on a diet for almost 3 years. I am scared and lost. Can you please give me a list of things that are safe and not safe for cholesterol? thank you.

Watching fats is particularly important.  Everyone needs fats in their diet, but what kind is super important. 

Sat/trans fats are bad for cholesterol levels, they lower good cholesterol and raise bad cholesterol.  Stay away from processed junk.  Also coconut oil and animal fats are high in bad fats.

Unsaturated fats are good for cholesterol levels.  Monounsaturated fats lower bad cholesterol and raise good cholesterol and polyunsaturated fats lower both good and bad cholesterol.  Fish and nuts are usually high in good fats.  Also certain oils, like canol, almond, corn and hazlenut oils are high in good fats. (source, and a good resource)

Make sure you read labels and know what fats are in the foods you feed your daughter. 

Edit:  You can't eat good or bad cholesterol, it is something that is already in your body, you can only eat things that affect whether your body produces more or less good and bad cholesterol (from the American Dietetic Association's Complete Food and Nutrition Guide)

Thank you, it is going to be a hard change, for all of us, but it is necesarry.

Good luck, it's hard turning around a lifetime worth of eating habits if you have been used to higher fat animal products, ect.  But there are so many interesting and tasty options, so hopefully you and your family can have fun and enjoy trying new foods!

I think that it is most important that you seek out help from her doctors as to what you should be doing to help her but I just wanted to throw out a thought. 

Traditionally it was thought that elevated blood cholesterol was a by-product of genetic predisposition and having too much saturated fat in your diet.  Saturated fat contains cholesterol so eating too much saturated fat must be the problem right? 

Well not necessarily, current studies are showing that high levels of blood cholesterol are a product of genetic predisposition but also a product of the insulin response to elevated levels of blood sugar, not ingested fat.  Eating sweets and high GI carbs spike blood sugar levels causing an insulin response which converts blood sugar to lipids which elevate the blood cholesterol levels. 

But please don't take my word for it, talk to her doctor.

I take Lipitor and it has helped a lot. I just started to watch what I eat since January. I'm hopeing to get off the drugs by fall. Good luck and just keep checking those labels.

I agree with trhawley about getting advice from a doctor.   The main things that will help reduce cholesterol are...

• Being a healthy weight for your height
• Eating less meat and fewer dairy products and more foods with unsaturated fats e.g. oily fish, olive oil, nuts, seeds, avocados
• Having plenty of wholegrains in the diet e.g. wholemeal wheat products, oatmeal, brown rice.... and also plenty of vegetables, fruit, beans (legumes), tofu etc.  Keep sugary foods to a minimum.
• Being as active as possible - for a child that's an hour a day ideally.

Please don't panic, however.  It's only 'slightly elevated', after all.  And raised cholesterol levels are only one risk factor in the ultimate development of heart-disease.   If you show your daughter how to live an active life, eat healthily, find ways to relax and not to take up things like smoking & drinking in due course I'm sure she'll live a long and healthy life.

thanks, she already had an appt made. I just thought Id get some advice before we go.

Was it just her total cholesterol that was elevated? If so, see if you can find out the breakdown - how much HDL (high-density - good cholesterol) and LDL (low density - bad cholesterol). If she has normal LDL, and high HDL is driving the total up, then it's probably no big deal.

Glad to hear you are already seeing a doctor as a specialist will certainly guide you properly.

When my father had his first heart attack in 1986 we changed a lot of things in our house food-wise. One of the major changes is that we switched from whole or 2% milk to  only skim milk. We were huge consumers of milk and this small change made a life-long impact on all of us. Less calories consumed and less fat intake. No idea how, if at all, it would affect cholesterol but it's a good change to make anyway.

Good luck and let us know what the docs say.

p.s. - Here is some info I found on the Ask Mary section of Calorie Count which may help the conversation with your daughter's doctor. Obviously being that your daughter is so young, some of this information may or may not apply.

How much cholesterol should I eat on a low cholesterol diet?

The risk for cardiovascular disease increases when blood cholesterol is high, and your cholesterol of 250 mg is in the high range; however, you need a fasting lipoprotein profile that measures LDL (the "bad cholesterol"), HDL (the "good cholesterol") and triglycerides before making therapeutic decisions. If your risk for heart disease is moderate or high, follow these diet recommendations:

• limit dietary cholesterol to 200 mg a day
• limit saturated fat to 7% of total calories (19 grams a day for you)
• limit total fat to 25 – 35% of total calories (66 – 97 grams a day for you)
• increase fiber to 25 - 38 grams per day (38 grams a day for you)
• limit sodium to 2300 mg per day
• exercise for at least 30 minutes a day and do weight-training twice a week

Your cholesterol ratio may respond to weight loss.  Besides following a low calorie, balanced diet, make sure your diet is very low in saturated fat and trans fat.  You, personally, need only 14 grams of saturated fat in one day.  You also need cardio-type exercise to raise your HDL (“good cholesterol”) and change your cholesterol ratio.  It helps to eat more water-soluble fiber, as well, by having a bowl of oatmeal  everyday. You could add a cholesterol-lowering drink that contain plant sterols, but it may not be necessary at this point and you’d have to check with your doctor first.

A few years ago, my Dad bought the book, "The Healthy Heart Miracle" by Dr. Gabe Mirkin and it completely changed his life and mine and many people around me.   I highly, highly recommend it, especially to anyone already suffering from diabetes, heart conditions, high cholesterol, high blood pressure.  Dr. Mirkin is board certified in 4 different disciplines, one of the few American physicians to have done so.  He's legit, not some quack.  There is nothing fancy about his suggestions but I can tell you it works.  My Dad was 75 or so at the time, followed Dr. Mirkin's advice to the letter and he went from taking Pravachol for his cholesterol to nothing in 8 weeks, and medication free for the last 5 years.  In fact, he's as healthy now as he's been in 30 years.  

Original Post by thermal:

Sat/trans fats are bad for cholesterol levels, they lower good cholesterol and raise bad cholesterol.  Stay away from processed junk.  Also coconut oil and animal fats are high in bad fats.

This isn't entirely true, a lot of older research came to this conclusion by lumping saturated and trans fats together in their studies.  Trans fats increase bad cholesterol and lower good cholesterol and should be avoided like the plague.  Saturated fats do increase bad cholesterol but also increase good cholesterol as much if not more (and since most people have lower levels of good cholesterol raising both good and bad the same amount would improve your ratio).

This article on saturated fats is a pretty good read.

You might also be interested in these studies (study 1 and study 2) which show the benefits to cholesterol and cardiac health from eating high fat diets. 

Comparing how a Masai warrior eats and what is happening with his body, would be like comparing me to an elite athlete or long distance runner.  It's almost irrelevant.  Yes there are cultures around the world in isolated pockets that eat lots of meat and saturated fat.  The connection most people fail to make is that the meat doesn't magically appear on their plate from a grocery store.  They run, and they run and they run after their food.  They walk miles and miles following their trap lines, game trails, and tracking down sick or wounded animals.  They pick up 50-80-100 lbs of meat and carry it back to the camp.  If I ran 10-20 miles a day in pursuit of food, I could eat all the meat I wanted and I'd be fine.   That's why elite athletes can eat so much meat and fat and still be fine, while they are athletes.  That's why when they stop playing but keep eating, many of them balloon up.  Men that play football are notorious for high protein, high fat diets.  Do you see many senior aged football players?  No. 

Relative to a Masai tribesman, a North American Indian up to the 19th century, an aboriginal in Australia, etc. we live very sedentary lifestyles, even those of us that regularly attend the gym.   Our bodies are not equipped to burn high levels of saturated fat.  By all means, if you are burning 4000, 5000  or more calories a day, you can eat lots of saturated fat.  The vast majority of us that are 1500-2500 cannot, and maintain a healthy cardiovascular system for long.

Original Post by johnnypenso:

Our bodies are not equipped to burn high levels of saturated fat.  By all means, if you are burning 4000, 5000  or more calories a day, you can eat lots of saturated fat.  The vast majority of us that are 1500-2500 cannot, and maintain a healthy cardiovascular system for long.

 Of course someone burning 5000+ calories a day can eat more saturated fat than someone buring 2000, they can also eat more protein, carbs, and other forms of fat, doesn't mean that someone on a lower calorie diet can't eat the same percentage as someone on a high calorie diet.

Saturated fat does raise LDL (bad) cholesterol, but it also raises HDL and generally improves a person's HDL/LDL ratio.  Is saturated fat as good for you as some other forms of fat? no, is it as bad as it's generally made out to be? absolutely not.