High Cholesterol Solution: Reduce Carbs Instead Of Saturated Fats, Study Shows

Many people used to believe that familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) was merely inherited. This would prompt people to think that premature coronary heart disease is something that they would expect because they were born with FH. However, a recent study shows that this is not always the case.

A new study entitled "Dietary Recommendations for Familial Hypercholesterolaemia" pointed out that FH patients tend to develop heart disease due to factors that are actually independent of their high cholesterol levels: diet, lifestyle and metabolic risk factors.

Health organizations, including the American Heart Association, have usually recommended cutting down meat, eggs, cheese and coconut oil for people with FH. But an international team of experts on heart disease and diet who reviewed the dietary guidelines for FH patients revealed that there was no justification for these recommendations.

"For the past 80 years, people with familial hypercholesterolemia have been told to lower their cholesterol with a low saturated fat diet. Our study showed that a more 'heart-healthy' diet is one low in sugar, not saturated fat,” MedicalXpress quoted the study’s lead author David Diamond, professor and heart disease researcher at the University of South Florida.

The researchers believe that a low carbohydrate diet can significantly improve heart disease biomarkers much better than a low-fat diet. They also pointed out that hypercoagulation is a more important risk factor for coronary heart disease than low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in individuals with FH.

A low-carb diet has beneficial effects on well-established risk factors of coronary heart diseases including body weight, fasting blood glucose levels, insulin levels, insulin sensitivity, inflammatory markers, HbA1c and blood pressure levels.

The researchers demonstrated that consuming additional fat and cholesterol alongside a low-carb diet lowered triglyceride levels and elevated HDL cholesterol levels. But it does not have any impact on the LDL-cholesterol (bad cholesterol) levels in people with FH.

"Dietary guidelines should consider carbohydrate restriction as an alternative dietary strategy for the prevention/management of dyslipidemia for populations with cardiometabolic risk," said the researchers in their paper published in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine.

Familial hypercholesterolemia is a genetic disorder that is characterized by elevated blood cholesterol levels (2-4 times higher than the average individual).