Comment by EZ-E
10 hours ago
I fixed my high cholesterol problem with oats... Months ago I replaced my daily dinner with a mix of oats + banana + protein powder + 1 tbsp olive oil + peanut butter + flaxseeds + oat milk - all mixed in a blender. My bad cholesterol (LDL levels) tanked from 160 mg/dL to 91 mg/dL. My daily dinners before that were not even that unhealthy. Dropping sat fat intake had nowhere near that much effect for me. For me and I assume for many others, lack soluble fibers are the root cause of high LDL levels.
Soluble fiber in general helps lower LDL, beans and lentils work well too. One caution for diabetics, this meal could be pretty high in carbs for a single sitting depending on portions.
So it appears oat fibers are just quite effective natural bile acid sequestrants[1]. That makes me wonder why don't we use this class of locally-acting compounds as first line cholesterol lowering treatment, instead going straight for the "bazooka" of systemic acting statins that have lots of side-effects, even affecting personality[2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bile_acid_sequestrant
[2] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200108-the-medications-...
I've been doing something similar for breakfast, one cup of oatmeal + one cup of water and about two tablespoons of chia seeds, microwave for 2 minutes. Add a banana and some honey, top it with whole roasted almonds and some raspberries. It has been doing wonders for my digestion. I'll have to try to add olive oil as well. My LDL was 150 last time I checked. I wonder what it is now since I've been doing this meal several times a week.
One of my most used appliances is a Tiger rice cooker with Porridge and timer function.
It's been used pretty much every day for 7+ years since I purchased it.
Every night I put 130g steel cut oats in, 400-420g of water, set it to cook for 45 mins and be ready for when I wake up in the morning. I'll then add 25g protein powder, sometimes a few berries or sprinkle with seeds/nuts. A nutritional power house.
I find steel cut oats more filling, a lot more substantial with ground oats more goopey. Steel cut oats are normally a hassle to cook but it's set and forget with the rice cooker. From what i've read I also believe the fact they sit soaking over night in water also is breaks down the starches which helps nutrient absorption.
Does wonders for digestion and satiety. Everything runs like clockwork with them. If I don't have them for a few days, things get irregular and a noticeable difference in satiety for the rest of the day where i end up snacking as feel hungry after meals.
You can skip the whole cooking part if you leave your oats and water mixed overnight!
Put your oats, portion of milk, some berries, cinnamon and honey in a container and leave it in the fridge overnight.
Do it now.
Come thank me tomorrow morning once you've tried it.
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I came up with a microwave steel cut oat method that worked well. Going from memory, I put the oats and hot water in a bowl in the microwave and set it for 45 seconds 100%, then 9 minutes at power level 2. One of those microwaves with "Cook 1" and "Cook 2" on it. The hot water I put in initially was basically boiling hot, you might need to do more time on cook 1 if you put in less hot water (at work we had one of those instant boiling water things).
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Steel cut whole groats have really good nutrition. That tough brown skin is full of good stuff. I do mine in the pressure cooker for 20 mins with 1:1:3 oats:milk:water.
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Add some walnuts. See my other comment for reasoning.
> one cup of oatmeal + one cup of water
Do you need a knife and fork?
> peanut butter
While peanut butter does contain some useful nutrients, there are much better choices out there in case someone would like to further improve/optimize their nutrition. Many topics in nutrition can be quite debatable but IMHO most other nuts outperform peanuts (which aren't even nuts) in many ways. Furthermore I'd say peanuts aren't that useful as a protein source in this situation given that protein powder is already being added.
I recently discovered the world of nut butters, and usually choose them over whole nuts due to easier digestibility and nutrient availability. Unless I'm eating macadamia nuts which already feel quite easy on the gut.
Peanut butter is cheap and delicious. A lot of people hyper-optimising nutrition (I was one of them) tend to forget much more obvious stuff like fiber, amino-acid profiles, absorption of specific vitamins like D, etc.
It's definitely cheap and delicious, but I found that it actually started giving me breakouts on my forehead, especially around my brow line, when I started putting it in smoothies after training 4-5x per week. Switching over to using almond butter (or really just cheaper raw almonds since I'm blending anyways) made it go away.
But also high in fat and thus calories. Lower-grade brands also add in garbage like palm fat or sugar. But like with all things, it depends a lot on the quantities you consume and also what else you eat and drink.
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Peanuts are an order of magnitude cheaper. Sometimes, if you buy a packet of "mixed nuts", you find the first three ingredients are three different types of peanut.
Being pedantic the only nuts we generally eat that are actually nuts are hazelnuts. The rest are seeds, drupes, or as in the case of peanuts legumes.
Chestnuts?
Peanut butter is much cheaper as nut butters are usually very expensive (at least here), but I agree, substituting peanut butter with tahini drastically improved my stomach/digestive issues.
I added it for weight maintenance/gain (I'm close to underweight)
Blending reduces some of the effects of including soluble fibres - your stomach empties faster, blood sugar can spike more quickly (especially with fruit smoothies), and you lose some of the "scrubbing" action in the intestines.
Can you be more specific with how you make it. Thanks!
Likewise i switched my breakfast to oats around 3 years ago when my cholesterol was above the recommended high threshold and its been constantly in the higher end of the accetable range ever since. I would like it to be lower, but its much better than it used to be.
Interesting. I have almost the same smoothie every morning minus the banana and oats. Instead I use psyllium husks for fibre.
My cholesterol has been in range for years despite eating almost exclusively saturated fat since I'm in the keto camp. Just watched an interesting episode by Peter Attia and Layne Norton on seed oils which might shift my view on PUFAs a bit.
Thoughts?
30 % of the population have genetic makeup such that they can smoke all their life and not increase their risk of lung cancer by much, yet it's deadly for the other 70% of the population.
Many many studies over many decades, reviewed and controlled for other factors have showed that consumption of saturated fat increases heart health issues leading to death in the majority of the population. Finland and Norway have reduced the number of CVD at the population level by educating and pushing for a reduction in sat fat. You are probably one of the few exception.
This, and the infamous seed oils are subject on which Attia has controversial opinions - he is not an expert on nutrition, nor an epidemiologist, but neither am I, so my advice would be to broaden your sources of information.
Having said this, is the thing about PUFA the results of the studies from Walter Willet? I've just watch Chris MacAskill (Viva Longevity on YouTube) talking about it, it seems that PUFA (fatty fish, walnuts, sunflower seed oil) has the most positive effect on triglycerides across the whole population, and beyond reducing saturated fat and increasing fiber intake.
Not related to your question, but the lead levels in psyllium husks are too high for me to consume them daily.
People are just different. I always wonder how we should think about eating and health on a personal level.
I can eat McDonalds and still get perfect blood results. (I dont do that anymore). I have a friend who does not like any vegetables and fruits, he is fine. But also friends who just look at a bag of sweets and grow fat. Allergies and stomach health can be very specific.
Of course you do control a lot. But at the same time, it seems very individual. Maybe a chance for personal AI nutrition practice?
Do you cook the oats beforehand?
I did the same, my cholesterol was lower than ever. What I think it happens was that I increase my proteins intake as well as the muscle.
There's literally nothing wrong with saturated fat. Most polyunsaturated fats arelre problematic
The science around what fats are good or bad is so confusing I don't think we can say much about them with certainly, except that trans fats are probably bad. I lean towards "eat whole foods", but those can include anything from beef and coconut which are full of saturated fats, to fish and nuts which are full of polyunsaturated fats.
Limiting animal fats (which are mostly saturated fats) has a very noticeable and measurable effect on how I'm feeling and doing overall. Primarily using olive/avocado oil and nuts/seeds as my fat sources significantly improved my energy levels, mental clarity, sleep, and stress/HRV (as measured by my Garmin watch). I've noticed this so many times that I don't think this is a placebo. I haven't checked any specific blood markers that might be affected by dietary fats though.
Saturated fats _are_ essential for humans but you should be getting enough of them from non-animal sources.
YMMV
I think that depends on the individual, or maybe on the dose. Years ago I read a bunch of books arguing for saturated fat, started eating a lot of it, and my cholesterol and triglycerides got horrifically bad. Even those books, which claimed high cholesterol is no big deal, were like "but if it goes over X then you need to fix that," and I was over X. I had high particle numbers too, which the books agreed was pretty bad. I went back to my normal diet and that took me back to my normal bloodwork.
Citation Needed.
My understanding is that the very few studies that showed positive impact of "adding" saturated fat turned out to be a replacement issue. They replaced junk (candy, refined carbs) with sat fat. Replacing with MUFA and PUFA showed a much greater effect.
Soybeans have more fiber than oats. More soluble fiber too.
They’re also somewhat less flexible in terms of a yummy breakfast, more likely to be GMOs, and a heavily sprayed crop.
Oats are a heavily sprayed crop as well (at least in the US). Glyphosate is also further sprayed on oats as a drying agent. Fortunately Costco sells a brand of glyphosate free oats in bulk.
China would like to have a word with you. Soy milk in particular is hugely popular for breakfast, and there's about a zillion other ways to eat it too.
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