This Morning's Dr Chris discusses the signs of high cholesterol
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High cholesterol isn’t one of the health conditions that announces itself with a variety of symptoms. Characterised by a lack of warning signs, cholesterol can be hard to spot. The only way to find out your levels for sure is by having a blood test. But leaving this substance to build up in your blood can lead to heart problems and strokes. So, diet interventions and lifestyle changes might be necessary.
Cholesterol isn’t all bad; your overall levels include both “bad” cholesterol and the “good” one.
Good cholesterol can even cut your risk of severe health problems.
However, the culprit out of the two, also known as LDL, is the one responsible for a greater risk of heart problems and strokes, the NHS explains.
Fortunately, enjoying green tea can help slash your bad levels, according to a study.
Diet plays a crucial role in cholesterol levels. What you eat affects how much good or bad cholesterol you have.
However, ensuring a healthy varied diet can add to the good one whilst taking away from the bad one.
And it’s not just what you eat but also what you drink.
A study published in the Nutrition Journal reports that green tea can “significantly” lower total cholesterol as well as the bad type.
The study analysed 31 trials that included over 3,000 subjects.
Apart from seeing a significant reduction in overall and bad cholesterol, they also noticed that green tea didn’t affect the good one.
On top of that, the hot drink was able to cut triglycerides.
The NHS explains that triglycerides are fatty substances similar to bad cholesterol.
However, it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact amount of tea and time necessary for this reduction as the number varied across the studies.
The duration usually ranged from a few weeks to a couple of months.
And the green tea intake differed from 80 milligrams (mg) per day to 2488.7 mg.
The potent part of the hot drink seems to be tea catechins which are “powerful antioxidants that prevent LDL oxidation by incorporating themselves into LDL particles”.
The study also reports that there might be a need for a safety margin when it comes to these goodies.
Some of the trials raised concerns regarding the safety of high-dose as “mild” side effects were reported.
These ranged from gastric upset, “mild” skin rashes and abdominal bloating.
Overall, the study concludes that supplementing with green tea offers beneficial effects on cholesterol in both “normal weight” and “overweight” subjects.
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