Vegetable diet can lower cholesterol

A diet rich in fiber and vegetables appears to lower cholesterol just as much as taking a statin drug.

Researchers said people who cannot tolerate the statin drugs because of side effects could turn to the diet, which they said their volunteers could easily follow.

David Jenkins of St. Michael’s Hospital and the University of Toronto and colleagues created what they called a diet “portfolio” high in soy protein, almonds and cereal fiber as well as plant sterols -- tree-based compounds used in cholesterol-lowering margarines, salad dressing and other products.

They tested their diet on 34 overweight men and women, comparing it with a low-fat diet and with a normal diet plus a generic statin drug, lovastatin.

The volunteers followed each regimen for a month, with a break in between treatment cycles.

Writing in the February issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Jenkins and colleagues said the low-fat diet lowered low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or “bad” cholesterol, by 8.5% after a month. Statins lowered LDL by 33% and the “portfolio” diet lowered LDL by nearly 30%.

The portfolio was rich in soy milk, soy burgers, almonds, oats, barley, psyllium seeds, okra and eggplant. The Almond Board of California helped fund the study, as did several food makers and the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.