Answer Fitness®: Practical Fitness Advice for Everyone

The Portfolio Diet: Lower Cholesterol Without Statin Drugs?

September 27, 2008 on 6:05 pm | By Matt | In Diet Reviews | 4 Comments

Find out whether the Portfolio Diet can help you lower cholesterol naturally through diet  … without Statin drugs.

Could dramatically lowering your cholesterol simply be a matter of eating the right combination of foods?

Dr. David J.A. Jenkins thinks so.  And if his research is right, it might actually be possible to cut cholesterol significantly just by eating the right foods, in the right combinations.

Jenkins, a nutrition and metabolism expert at the University of Toronto and the “Father” of the gylycemic index, calls it the “The Portfolio Diet” and the concept is actually quite straightforward: By combining a variety of foods that have been shown to lower cholesterol on their own, it may be possible to lower serum cholesterol naturally without resorting to prescription statin drugs.   

Besides having profound public health consequences, this approach to eating and cholesterol control also promises to lower the cost of treating high cholesterol, potentially saving millions in prescription drug costs and health issues that arise from the side-effects of prescription statin drugs.

The Portfolio Diet: The Sum Is Greater Than The Parts?

For more than a decade, researchers have known that certain foods like oatmeal and soy can help lower blood cholesterol levels. However, until recently these foods have been viewed more or less independently of each other.

Dr. Jenkins decided to take a look at how combining a variety of foods that have been shown to reduce cholesterol might collectively work together, providing more bang for your buck.  

Jenkins’ study took a look at forty-six healthy, middle-aged adults who had high cholesterol. The subjects were divided into three groups:

1.  One group was placed on a whole-grain and low-fat dairy diet that was low in saturated fats;
2.  The second group followed the same diet, but also took a lovastatin, a cholesterol-reducing statin drug;
3.  The third group ate a diet high in plant sterols, ”sticky” fiber, soy and almonds.   

All groups experienced a reduction in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL), and not surprisingly, the statin group experienced the most dramatic drop — a 30.9 percent reduction.

However, what did surprise researchers was the reductions seen in the porfolio diet group, which experienced a 28.9 percent reduction in fasting blood cholesterol levels, making it nearly as effective at cutting cholesterol as prescription statin drugs.

Continue reading The Portfolio Diet: Lower Cholesterol Without Statin Drugs?…

Sphere: Related Content

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Interval Training (HIIT) | Get Leaner with Less Cardio?

September 14, 2008 on 4:57 pm | By Matt | In Exercise | 6 Comments

Can Interval Training help you strip off body fat faster? Learn how adding High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) into your cardio routine can reap big rewards in strength, power and fat loss.

When most people think of cardio, they think of endless hours on a treadmill, elliptical machine, stair stepper or jogging. But unless you enjoy distance or long-duration cardio (for example, if you are training for a marathon or are a running enthusiast) , many gym-goers dread climbing on that hamster wheel each day in the hopes of burning off that 400 calories and maybe losing a little body fat along the way.

But what if there was a way to burn nearly the same amount of calories in 30 minutes that you do in 60 minutes, stimulate fat burning after your cardio is complete, boost your stamina and endurance, and actually increase lean muscle in the process?

There may be.

It’s called Interval Training — also known as “High Intensity Interval Training” or “HIIT“, for short — and it uses periods of high-intensity cardio coupled with lower-intensity recovery periods in succession to shave time off your cardio workout and possibly more fat off your midsection than long duration cardio. And even more promising, Interval Training seems to do a better job than long-duration cardio of preserving lean tissue (muscle) while still burning fat.

Interval Training: What Is It?

Simply put, Interval Training is a method of cardiovascular training that has you perform the same amount of total work that you would perform in a longer session of cardio, but in a much shorter period of time by increasing the intensity of your workout.  

Interval Training is considered an advanced form of training and is popular with everyone from elite Olympic and professional athletes to body builders, fitness enthusiasts and recreational runners.  While the technique is advanced, it can be successfully modified to work for beginners as well, provided you are in good health and are free of any cardiovascular disorders that could make the routine unsafe.

Interval Training relies on the principle of rest and recovery to allow your body to do more work in less time. By alternating higher-intensity activity with short rest and recovery periods, you are able to cumulatively do more work in less time. And more work translates into more calories burned in a 30 minute session of cardio than if you did the same duration of cardio at a lower intensity.

Examples of Interval Training

High Intensity Interval Training can be applied to nearly any cardiovascular activity, whether that’s walking, running, rollerblading or biking.

For example, if you are fit and regularly walk as part of your exercise routine, you might incorporate short periods (between 1-2 minutes) of jogging into your walk between lower-intensity periods of walking. If you are less fit, you might simply walk faster for a few minutes, allow yourself to recover and than repeat the higher intensity walking. If you are more highly conditioned, you might add in sprints to your daily run or treadmill work.

The Benefits of High Intensity Interval Training

High Intensity Interval Training has a number of benefits that make it an effective addition to your existing cardiovascular training. These benefits include:

• Burning more calories in less time
• Improved cardiovascular endurance
• Possible increases in whole body fat burning (fat oxidation) versus solid-state cardio
• Reduced risk of Metabolic Syndrome
• Decreased muscle catabolism/increases in lean muscle mass
• Improvements in arterial elasticity
• Reduced boredom with your current cardio routine

Let’s take a closer look at each of these potential benefits, including some of the research behind them.

Continue reading Interval Training (HIIT) | Get Leaner with Less Cardio?…

Sphere: Related Content

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!