Forty percent of people in the UK and US have high cholesterol. Knowing how to lower it can be confusing. In today’s episode, we simplify the science of cholesterol, drawing from ZOE’s 2021 PREDICT study, which explored its link to the gut microbiome.

Dr. Sarah Berry explains the differences between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ cholesterol, discusses how cholesterol can impact your health, and shares tips on maintaining healthy cholesterol levels.

Sarah is a professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at King's College London and Chief Scientist at ZOE. She is also the lead nutritional scientist on the PREDICT program.

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Timecodes

00:00 Introduction

01:40 Quickfire questions

04:01 What is cholesterol?

05:50 LDL vs HDL cholesterol

11:35 How diet affects cholesterol

13:55 Which fats should you increase?

16:00 Why do some people have high LDL levels?

18:40 The gut microbiome and cholesterol

20:37 What is ApoB?

24:00 Why don’t all doctors measure ApoB?

25:50 Why triglycerides matter to your health

29:30 Triglycerides and post-meal responses

30:45 Which foods can help lower cholesterol?

33:20 Saturated fat explained

35:30 How refined carbs affect cholesterol

39:50 Can you trust ‘low fat’ food labels?

41:15 The benefits of whole grain carbohydrates and fibre

45:03 Sarah’s personal view on statins

48:13 Cholesterol levels in postmenopausal women

Books by our ZOE Scientists:

• Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati


• Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector


• Fibre Fuelled by Dr Will Bulsiewicz

Free resources from ZOE:

• 
  Live Healthier: Top 10 Tips From ZOE Science & Nutrition 


• Gut Guide - for a healthier microbiome in weeks

Mentioned in today's episode

• What are triglycerides and why do you need them


• Does variation in serum LDL-cholesterol response to dietary fatty acids help explain the controversy over fat quality and cardiovascular disease risk? Atherosclerosis VOL 328


• Determination of variability in serum low-density lipoprotein cholesterol response to the replacement of dietary saturated fat with unsaturated fat, Proceedings of the Nutrition Society.


• Dietary saturated fat and cholesterol: cracking the myths around eggs and cardiovascular disease, J Nutr Sci. 2023


• The effects of probiotics on total cholesterol, Medicine (Baltimore)


• Microbiome connections with host metabolism and habitual diet from 1,098 deeply phenotyped individuals (Zoe’s PREDICT study)

Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know here.

Episode transcripts are available here.