Tag: cholesterol

Healthy Heart Tip: Eggs & Heart Health

Heart Research UK Healthy Heart Tip, written by the Health Promotion and Education Team at Heart Research UK

Healthy Heart Tip: Eggs & Heart Health

Eggs & cholesterol

Egg yolk is rich in cholesterol and therefore there has been some debate about whether people with raised cholesterol levels should eat them or whether they’ll considerably increase blood cholesterol levels.

However, experts agree that dietary cholesterol, such as that found in eggs, has much less of an effect on the level of cholesterol in your blood compared to the amount of saturated fat you are consuming.

How you eat your eggs matters

How people cook eggs varies widely and what people use to cook eggs in can differ too. We recommend poaching, boiling or baking your eggs to limit your use of oils and fats when cooking.

What we eat eggs with matters too, for example, consuming poached eggs with wholegrain bread and some vegetables is much more healthful than consuming them as part of a greasy fry up which lacks fibre.

The takeaway points

Eggs are an affordable source of protein and are rich in vitamins and minerals. It’s therefore perfectly healthy to include them as part of a balanced diet.

As with many diet recommendations, the key is moderation and not consuming one thing in excess. Specifically in relation to cholesterol, we should focus more on reducing our consumption of saturated fat rather than worrying about the cholesterol in eggs.

To help keep your heart healthy, why not try out some of our healthy recipes from our website: https://heartresearch.org.uk/heart-research-uk-recipes-2/.

Could you reduce your meat consumption?

Healthy Heart Tips from Heart Research UK

Many red and processed meats are high in saturated fat. Too much saturated fat in the diet can raise the amount of LDL cholesterol in the blood.

The NHS recommends a daily meat intake of no more than 70g. Reducing your intake of red and processed meats will not only benefit your health, but it is also good for the environment.

Heart Research UK have some tips to help you reduce your red and processed meat consumption:

What are red, white and processed meats?
Red meat includes beef, lamb and pork and it tends to be higher in saturated fat. White meat, such as chicken and turkey are lower in total fat and saturated fat. Processed meat includes smoked, cured and preserved meats, such as bacon, salami, sausages and ham.

Take a break from red and processed meat every week

Don’t feel pressured to cut out all meat from your diet. If you tend to eat red and/or processed meat most days, why not challenge yourself to one meat-free day every week? Try searching online or in cookbooks for meat-free recipes. You can also get some inspiration by visiting: https://www.meatfreemondays.com/

Switch to white meat or fish

If you cook with a lot of red and processed meat, or if steak is your usual option when eating out, try switching to chicken, turkey or fish instead. This will help to reduce your saturated fat intake. Aim to eat two portions of fish every week, one of which should be an oily fish. Oily fish, such as salmon, sardines, and mackerel, contain omega-3 fatty acids which help to keep your heart healthy.

Try some vegetarian alternatives

Meat substitutes, such as vegetarian sausages, mince and burgers are lower in saturated fat than equivalent meat products. Keep an eye on food labels as some meat substitutes are high in calories and salt. If you’re not a fan of ‘fake meat’ you could try products made with beans, pulses, and nuts as these are all good sources of protein.

Low fat diets decrease testosterone levels in men

A new study conducted at the University of Worcester and published in The Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, has found low fat diets decrease men’s testosterone levels by 10 – 15%.

Optimal testosterone levels are critical to men’s health. Low testosterone levels are linked to a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease. Healthy testosterone levels are also key for men’s athletic performance, mental health, and sexual health.

Since the 1970s, there has been a decrease in men’s average testosterone levels and rates of hypogonadism (medically low testosterone) have been increasing. Low risk dietary strategies could be a useful treatment for low testosterone.

The study was a systematic review and meta-analysis, which combined together the results of 6 well-controlled studies with a total of 206 participants. These studies first put men on a high fat diet (40% fat), and then transferred them to a low fat diet (20% fat), and found their testosterone levels decreased by 10-15% on average. Particularly bad were vegetarian low fat diets causing decreases in testosterone up to 26%.

The authors linked their results to similar studies conducted in humans and mice. These studies found high intakes of monounsaturated fats found in olive oil, avocados, and nuts may boost testosterone production.

However, omega 6 polyunsaturated fats predominantly found in vegetable oils, may damage the cells’ ability to produce testosterone. This is because highly unsaturated fats such as polyunsaturated fats are more prone to oxidation, which causes cell damage.

“Low testosterone levels are linked to a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease.”

The authors stated that further research needs to be done in this important area.

The lead researcher Joseph Whittaker said, “Ideally, we would like to see a few more studies to confirm our results. However, these studies may never come, normally researchers want to find new results, not replicate old ones. In the meantime, men with low testosterone would be wise to avoid low fat diets”.

Dietary fat is a controversial topic in nutritional science, with proponents of various diets often in stark disagreement (low fat vs low carbohydrate). The benefits of low fat diets such as reduced cholesterol levels, should be weighed up against the potential downsides, such as decreased testosterone levels.

Traditionally, dietary guidelines have focused on limiting fat intake, with the current UK and US guidelines limiting fat intake to less than 35% of total calories. However, as more research on the benefits of high fat, low carbohydrate diets is done, this traditional view is coming under increasing scrutiny.

In recent years, high fat diets have been shown to decrease triglycerides, decrease blood pressure, increase HDL cholesterol (aka ‘good cholesterol’) – and now, with this latest research, increase testosterone levels.

For the published article please see:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0960076021000716