What should we eat (and what should we not eat) to reduce the cardiovascular disease risk factor lipoprotein(a)?
Lipoprotein A, also known as Lp(a), is An independent, causal genetic factor in cardiovascular disease and heart attacks. At any given level of LDL cholesterol, our risk of heart attack and stroke is two to three times higher when our Lp(a) is elevated. With a high enough level of Lp(a), atherosclerosis continues to progress even if we greatly reduce our LDL cholesterol, which may help explain why so many people continue have heart attacks and strokes even under treatment for high cholesterol. It has been suggested that “it might be worth checking Lp(a) levels in a patient who has had an event but has no traditional risk factors to explain it.” However, what’s the point of checking if there’s not much we can do? can What to do about it? “To date, no medicine reduce “Clinical use of circulating levels of Lp(a) has been approved.”
Some researchers blame Our lack of knowledge about the fact that Lp(a) is not found in typical laboratory animals, such as rats and mice. It is only found in two places in nature: primates and hedgehogs. Hedgehogs? How strange is that? No wonder Lp(a) is “An enigmatic protein that has baffled medical scientists since it was first discovered more than half a century ago. But who needs mice when there are men? The level in our bloodstream is “mostly certain” by genetics. For a long time, Lp(a) was not thought to be significantly influenced by factors such as diet. However, given its similarity to LDL, it could be assume Lifestyle changes, “such as increasing physical activity or adopting a healthy diet,” would be helpful. “However, the effects of these interventions on Lp(a) concentrations are so far only marginal or lack evidence,” but could this be because they have not been proven? tried A plant-based diet still?
As I mentioned in my video How to reduce Lp(a) with dietWhen it comes to raising LDL cholesterol, we have known for years that trans fats found Trans fats from meat and dairy products are just as bad as industrially produced trans fats found in partially hydrogenated oil and junk food. But, when it comes to Lp(a), as you can see below and at minute 2:05 of my video, videoTrans fats from meat and dairy products appear to be even worse.
Fair court Giving up meat and going on a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet didn’t seem to help, but as you can see below and at minute 2:19 of my blog, videowhen the study participants were put On a whole-foods, plant-based diet with a dozen servings of fruits and vegetables a day, her Lp(a) levels dropped 16 percent in four weeks.
Of course, in those 30 days, the study subjects also lost about 15 pounds, as you can see below and at 2:28, but the weight loss doesn’t seem to affect Lp(a) levels, so it is assumed that it must have been due to diet.
If you already follow a healthy plant-based diet and your Lp(a) levels are still too high, are there specific foods that can help? As with cholesterol, even if the average total cholesterol for those people is 100 mg/dL, eating A strictly plant-based diet can be right at under 150, with an LDL below 70, there is a bell curve with 30 or so points falling on either side, as you can see below and at 2:45 in my video.
Get into The “Portfolio Diet,” which is not only plant-based, but also includes specific cholesterol-lowering foods such as nuts, beans, oats, and berries to further lower cholesterol. The infographic is below and at minute 3:11 of my video.
What about Lp(a)? Nuts have been put to the test. Two and a half ounces of almonds every day reduced levels, but only by 8 percent. However, this is better than another study on nuts, which found It has no effect, as you can see below and at minute 3:29 in my video. An additional study found “there were no significant changes,” and the researchers reported that the subjects in their study “did not experience a change in Lp(a)”. Ah, how crazy.
There is a plant that looks like drop Lp(a) levels are reduced by 20 percent, which is enough for people who are over the US limit to reach a more optimal level. And that plant is a fruit: Emblica officinalisalso known as amla or Indian gooseberry. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study asked smokers before and after the trial about their “oral hygiene, cough with expectoration, shortness of breath on exertion, loss of appetite, feeling of impending doom, palpitations, poor sleep, irritability, heartburn, and tiredness,” as well as objective measurements such as their blood count, cholesterol, DNA damage, antioxidant status, and lung function. The amla extract used “showed significant improvement compared to the placebo group in all subjective and objective parameters tested with no reports of adverse events.” No side effects at all. That’s amazing! No, that’s amazing. And in fact, it’s not entirely true.
Yes, subjective complaints improved in the amla group, but they also improved in the placebo group, with arbitrary scoring systems and no statistical analysis whatsoever. And, of the two dozen objective measures, only half could be said to have reached any kind of statistical significance before and after and only three were significant enough to account for the fact that if you measure two dozen things, a few might show up as positive if only by chance. Any time you see this kind of manipulation in the abstract, which is sometimes the only part of a study that people read, you should suspect some kind of conflict of interest. The researchers did not declare any conflict of interest, though, but that’s just nonsense since the study was funded by the same company that sells those amla supplements. Sigh.
Anyway, one of those three significant findings was Lp(a), so it might be worth a try in the context of a plant-based diet, which, in addition to ration With weight loss, you can dramatically improve blood pressure (even after reducing blood pressure medication) and contribute to a 25-point reduction in LDL cholesterol. contribute a 30 percent drop in C-reactive protein and significant reductions in other inflammatory markers for “a systemic cardioprotective effect,” all thanks to this single dietary approach.
You might be interested in my video about Trans fats in meat and dairy productsDid you know that animal products are exempt from the ban? See Ban trans fats in processed foods, but not animal fats.
To learn more about amla and what else it can do, check out the related posts below.
If you missed my previous video on Lp(a), check it out Treatment of elevated Lp(a): a risk factor for atherosclerosis.
