If you go see a doctor for high cholesterol, the typical response is to give you a pill
to take in order to lower it, but what if you don't want to take medication or what
if you're on medication but you don't want to be on it for the rest of your life and
you want to figure out a way to get cholesterol down and not need the medication.
For those of you that don't know me, my name is Dustin Williams and for the best health,
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First, we want to remember that the main purpose of cholesterol is to be helpful.
Cholesterol itself is a biological necessity and it's often viewed in kind of a negative
light, but it actually has quite a few very helpful functions that are super important
just to name a few.
It's included in the production of our sex hormones like pregnenalone, which goes to
progesterone and DHEA and testosterone and DHT.
It's also involved in the production of vitamin D as well as the creation of bile acids that
we use in our gut.
In order to lower our cholesterol naturally, we need to find out why our cholesterol is
a little bit higher in the first place.
Chances are that there's probably something that's keeping cholesterol from being utilized
in the way that it's supposed to be.
There is a reason that your body is producing as much cholesterol as it is.
We need to find out what that reason is and instead of just using a statin to block the
production of cholesterol, which can have a list of it's own negative side effects,
which is a whole different video.
We want to find out specifically why cholesterol isn't being utilized for one of its purposes.
One of the first things that I would look at is your thyroid status.
What's going on with your overall thyroid?
As I mentioned earlier, thyroid mixes with cholesterol in order to create our sex hormones,
it initially starts off as pregnenalone and then works its way down into progesterone
and DHEA and testosterone and DHT.
So cholesterol is needed in order for this process to occur if you have a decent amount
of cholesterol, but if you are lacking in thyroid hormone, then the cholesterol is there
to do the job to create these hormones, but the thyroid isn't there in order to complete
it.
So by making sure that you have adequate amounts of thyroid hormone, it will combine and
metabolize the cholesterol as its supposed to. Turning it into these sex hormones.
One of the interesting things about this is that you don't have to have full on what's
considered hypothyroidism.
In order for this to potentially have an effect on your cholesterol.
Doctors used to use thyroid hormone as a treatment for high levels of cholesterol.
Even whenever people would still show in the normal ranges, they just might be on the lower
end of the normal ranges and they still had good results by utilizing thyroid hormone
to treat high cholesterol.
If we look at a specific study that compared TSH with cholesterol, we see that current
data suggests that normalizing even modest thyroid-stimulating hormone elevations may
result in improvement in the lipid profile.
So if you haven't had it checked, this would be one of the first things that I would do
is go to your doctor and find a doctor that will run a full thyroid panel.
It's not uncommon for doctors to only pull one test, which is called TSH, which is helpful,
but it's definitely incomplete.
In order to see a full thyroid panel, you need at minimum TSH plus free and total T
four free and total T three potentially even reverse T three as well.
You need to be able to see what's going on with the thyroid as a whole and know everything
in order to see if that's potentially one of the reasons that you may have higher levels
of cholesterol.
The second thing that I would do is kind of twofold.
It is a combination of sunlight and vitamin D. find out what's going on with your vitamin
D. do you have adequate vitamin D levels and there's multiple reasons that your vitamin
D might be low, but one of the more common ones is typically we do not get enough sunlight,
especially in the winter months.
And here's the thing.
We all know that sunlight adds vitamin D, but part of that process is that it uses precursors
to cholesterol and what's been found in some of the studies is that if you do not get enough
sunlight, potentially that precursor is converting to cholesterol instead of using the sunlight
in converting into vitamin D. so if you don't have an a vitamin D or if you are not getting
enough sunlight, this could potentially raise your cholesterol.
Now, if we look directly into the study, we see that they state that sunlight deficiency
could increase blood cholesterol by cholesterol synthesis rather than vitamin D synthesis
as would occur with greater amounts of sunlight exposure.
They state we show evidence that outdoor activity, something like gardening is associated with
a lower concentration of blood cholesterol in the summer.
So based on this study alone, they're finding that just by getting outside, getting into
the sun more often during the summer months, whenever the sun is out more, it's brighter
and you're getting more synthesis of vitamin D that they are seeing lower blood cholesterol
numbers.
One of the things that you need to understand is that taking a vitamin D supplement will
not have the same effect on cholesterol.
You have to be able to get sunlight to use the cholesterol to convert it into vitamin
D. taking the vitamin D supplement will not have the same effect.
The third thing, diet and exercise together.
Now this one may seem a little bit more obvious.
It's not uncommon if you have high cholesterol, you're told to control your nutrition and
start to exercise.
But here's the interesting thing.
Whenever they started to look at some research specifically on blood cholesterol numbers,
they compared just dieting, just exercise and dieting and exercise together.
And they found that the two together had the biggest impact on lowering blood cholesterol.
In this study, the diet didn't lower LDL cholesterol levels significantly in either men or women,
but when the diet was combined with exercise, the resulting reductions in LDL cholesterol
levels were significant with no adverse effect on HDL cholesterol.
So in this study, they found that this specific diet that they put them on didn't have much
of an impact on their cholesterol levels.
But when they combine the diet with the exercise is where in men and women both, they saw a
reduction in LDL cholesterol specifically.
Now if you're needing a little bit of help getting motivated and maybe you haven't started
a diet or exercise program, I've actually put a video together for you on this.
It's going to be really helpful as far as getting motivated to exercise and to start
a diet program.
I'll link to that video below in the description.
These are the three main areas that I would start.
Whenever you are trying to focus on lowering your cholesterol levels naturally, and this
doesn't mean that these are the only three ways to get them lowered.
These are just three of the more common ways that we have seen some of the biggest impacts
that I've seen with my clients on helping them get their blood levels
cholesterol lower without the use of medication.
Now whenever it comes to cholesterol and utilizing it properly, it's a very individual process.
So you may need all three of these, a combination of them or you may need other things on top
of it.
But this is a really good starting place for each person to get out there.
Plus if you are getting more exercise, eating better, getting a little bit more sunlight,
and potentially making sure your thyroid is okay, there's definitely no negative side
effects for you for doing these things, even if they don't have as big of an impact on
your cholesterol is what you're looking for because it can be such an individualized process.
But that also makes sense as to why people are just taking a statin because sometimes
figuring these things out can be a little bit more complex.
It's not as easy as I'm going to take this pill every day and now my blood work looks
good.
Going the route of trying to figure out what's going on in your body can take a little bit
more time and requires a little bit more effort and it's kind of an educated guessing game.
So, uh, understandable.
Why people would prefer to take statins, but for those of you that are looking to avoid
taking any medication, these are definitely the three areas that I would start.
And if you want to join a community that is looking to be healthier, I have a Facebook
group for you.
It is put together where we talk about health, nutrition, and fitness, and we give some tips
or sometimes it's a little bit more complicated to navigate this trickier space would love
it if you would join.
All you have to do is click the link below, a request to join the Facebook group and hopefully,
we'll be able to help point you in the right direction and give you some more health tips
concerning fitness and nutrition.
And of course, as always, if you enjoyed this video, I would appreciate it if you would
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guys in the next video.