In most cases, the first thing a person with high cholesterol should do for lowering cholesterol is to change his or her diet. An eating plan designed for controlling cholesterol should:
Limit the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol you eat.
Contain only enough calories to achieve or maintain a healthy weight.
Increase the soluble fiber in your diet. Oatmeal, kidney beans, and apples are good sources of soluble fiber.
Add cholesterol-lowering food (such as margarines that contain plant sterol or stanol esters that lower cholesterol for some people) to your eating plan.
A specific diet for controlling cholesterol (known as the TLC diet) has been shown to decrease LDLcholesterol levels(see Low Cholesterol Diet). This is a low-saturated-fat, low-cholesterol eating plan that calls for less than 7 percent of calories from saturated fat and less than 200 mg of dietary cholesterol per day. The TLC diet recommends only enough calories to maintain a desirable weight and avoid weight gain.
If your LDL is not lowered enough by reducing your saturated fat and cholesterol intake, the amount of soluble fiber in your diet can be increased. Certain food products that contain plant stanol or plant sterols (for example, cholesterol-lowering margarines) can also be added to the TLC diet to boost its LDL-lowering power (see Cholesterol Lowering Food).
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