Heart disease is the leading cause of death in America, killing over 650,000 people a year. LDL is what is thought of as bad cholesterol, the type of cholesterol that is correlated with heart attacks and strokes.
Unfortunately, the most common response from your general practitioner doctor to increasing LDL levels will be “we should keep an eye on that,” then, if your levels increase, there will usually be a prescription for a statin. These have proven effective, but what if there is a better solution? What if there was a simple way to lower cholesterol levels through what we eat?
What if there was a simple way to lower cholesterol levels through what we eat?
About 4 months ago I signed up at InsideTracker, the ultra-personalized nutrition plan designed to optimize your health, and selected my plan, The Ultimate, which included blood tests for 43 biomarkers and genetic testing to gain DNA insights. The biomarkers were automatically added to my profile and then from a range of possible goals I selected strength (the lockdowns had taken a toll on my muscle mass). The platform then gave me a list of about 10 suggested modifications to my eating and lifestyle.
Following the recommendations on the InsideTracker platform, I made small, easily done adjustments to my diet, and without taking any pharmaceuticals, I was able to dramatically decrease my LDL levels while increasing my good HDL cholesterol. When I showed my primary care doctor these results, his response was, “This is fantastic; how did you do it?” I had simply followed the daily recommendations of the InsideTracker platform based on my personal biomarkers.
Here is a graph of my LDL and HDL as seen on the InsideTracker platform:
As Dr. Gil Blander, one of the founders of InsideTracker, has told me, food is our best medicine. There is a tremendous amount of confusing and contradictory information about what to eat when. InsideTracker bases its recommendations on your goals, your genetics, and your biomarkers. I was able to see a measurable impact on my health markers in just four months.
InsideTracker bases its recommendations on your goals, your genetics, and your biomarkers
My initial LDL level was 117mg/dl, which needed some help to get it under the normal 100 level. One of the things I really like about InsideTracker is they take a food first, supplements when needed, approach. The actions the platform recommended to help me reach my optimal level included eating oatmeal, a psyllium supplement, high fiber fruit, an alpha-lipoic acid supplement[2], olive oil, a garlic supplement, a probiotic, and adding more cardio training. These were based on a blood test that looked at 43 biomarkers. These biomarkers are scientifically chosen as the most important ones for our health, and most highly actionable ones.
Re-testing was the key to determine if the dietary changes were having an effect. The answer was a huge yes; the recommendations which I followed were 100% working. Why? Because unlike reading a diet book, the recommendations from the InsideTracker platform were specifically designed to help me, based on my needs and my goals. Thanks to the daily reminders and check-ins, I was able to stay on track and get this sort of measurable result.
I will continue to follow the recommendations. Dr Blander recommends that I check in again after 4 months which I will do and again publish the results. Stay tuned.
Save 25% on all InsideTracker products here.
Check out The SuperAge Podcast with InsideTracker dietitian Ashley Reaver “What to eat and when to eat it” here.
Can I join inside tracker from the UK ? Enjoy weareageist identify with many of the articles and the optimism