Nurse Maureen‘s Health Show

Heart Health Demystified: Understanding Cholesterol and Triglycerides

• Maureen McGrath

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Speaker 1:

Good evening and welcome to Nurse Maureen's Health Show Podcast. I'm Maureen McGrath, registered Nurse, nurse, continence Advisor, sexual Health Educator, healthcare Consultant, and you can come to me for all of your healthcare needs. Because it's evidence-based. That means it's based on science. It's also based on clinical trends that I see in my clinical practice. So some of the questions patients ask, or some of the things people say.

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One of the most common things people say is that, well, I think my good is up and my bad is down, and I'm not talking about sex lives, I'm talking about cholesterol and triglycerides. Yes, tonight I want to give you a little bit of education on these incredibly important lab values and also provide you with some eating and lifestyle options to improve your blood cholesterol, triglycerides and, ultimately, your heart health. This is up to you. This is entirely up to you as to how you want to improve your quality of life and prevent your risk of cardiovascular disease, heart attack and stroke. Let's start with blood cholesterol and triglycerides and what that actually means. When people are saying my good is up, my bad is down, my bad is down and my good is up, well, high-density lipoprotein, or the HDL cholesterol, is known as the good or the healthy cholesterol, and that's how you can remember it. H with healthy, it helps protect you by preventing the narrowing of your blood vessels, so blood can flow much better. And what does that mean? That means your heart health is going to be better and even your sex life is going to be better, because sex is all about blood flow. Now, the low density lipoprotein, or the LDL cholesterol, is known as the bad, or a way to remember it is. It's the lousy cholesterol associating those two L's together.

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Higher levels of LDL in the bloodstream increases the amount of fat in the walls of your blood vessels, or in other words, the plaque increases in your blood vessels over time, and that can increase your risk of cardiovascular disease or a stroke because it can narrow or block your blood vessels, because narrowed vessels, narrowed blood vessels, can increase blood pressure Another very important number and you want to make sure that yours is at least 130 over 80 or below, or 120 more ideally 120 over 80 or below, because increased blood pressure can also lead to heart attacks or strokes. Now let's talk about triglycerides. People don't typically talk about triglycerides, but what they are is they are a type of fat in your blood, and higher levels of triglycerides increase your risk for heart attack and stroke. Triglycerides rise when you eat higher amounts of wait for it sugar A lot of people love sugar Fat and or surprisingly enough to you perhaps alcohol. They may also rise if your blood sugars are high, and an HEA1C level is a retrospective look at your blood sugars over a three month period of time, so that's a good test to have. Oftentimes, doctors will draw the HDL, the LDL and the triglycerides together. So it's important to know all of those numbers, and so you know it's important that you have healthy eating. What all of this means is that this is a modifiable risk factor and you can change it by eating more healthily. In other words, olive oil, nuts, seeds, avocados.

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Stay away from things like processed meats, coconut oil, creams and butters all the things we love. But you want to eat things like salmon, trout fish, sardines at least twice a week, and you might want to order that in a restaurant. Take a look at what they offer on the menu for fish. Whole grains are important, beans, vegetables every single day, and eating foods with soluble fibers in them will help to lower your cholesterol, like oats, psyllium, fiber and barley. Also, soy foods soy foods, yes, like tofu, tempeh, edamame. They're also good to add and try to cut down on the glycemic index foods. So try to eat foods that have little or no added sugar.

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You want to choose unsaturated fats more often than not. In other words, I mentioned avocado, but canola, flaxseed, peanuts, safflower, soybean, sunflower, walnut, almonds, hazelnut, nut butter, peanuts, pecan, pistachio, walnuts. There's chia seeds, ground flax, hemp hearts you can add these to salads. Pumpkin is good, seed butter, sesame, sunflower, and it's a good idea to incorporate those into your diet. You also want to choose omega-3 fats more frequently. So we see that in sardines and trout salmon, arctic char. That's a nice menu item in lots of good restaurants.

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Herring mackerel, you want to aim for two or more servings of fatty fish each week, and one serving is about a hundred grams or three and a half ounces for my American listeners of cooked fish. And so you want to start with fish you enjoy and a lot of people say I don't like fish, I don't like seafood. But just try it, and even try it in a restaurant first, perhaps, or try seasoning it with lemon and olive oil and you know Greek seasoning is good on it. You want to maybe bake it or broil it or grill it with little or no added salt or butter and you know, as I mentioned, adding some spices like crushed peanuts, fresh herbs, lemons. It could kind of get you used to that fishy taste. I happen to love fish, I love whitefish, I love haddock, I love halibut, I love salmon, so I try and choose those in my diet at least twice a week.

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Plant foods with omega-3 include things like canola oil, walnuts, ground flax, chia seeds, and they're heart healthy but will not lower your heart disease risk as much as the fatty fish. The saturated fish you want to stay away from because too much saturated Sorry, did I say saturated fish? I did Saturated fat you want to stay away from because too much saturated fat may raise your LDL and that's the lousy cholesterol, remember. And you want to make sure you're reading the nutrition facts, not just whether it comes from Canada or the US or another country. Read the nutrition facts table on packaged foods to choose foods with less saturated fats and you know what Good, clean foods, vegetables from your own garden, you know, healthy foods are what really you should be choosing.

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But you want to limit foods that are high in saturated fats, like meats, for example, or meats with fat streaks or marbling or poultry skin. That never, never a good thing. I was taught that skin on the chicken is not good even though it is delicious. Ice cream or cream, butter, lard, hard margarine, palm or coconut oil, and also those deli meats and those processed foods the luncheon meats like bacon bologna bacon is so good and sausages as well. Really, limit those. It doesn't mean you can never have them, but it just means to be very mindful of how much you're consuming. Nitrates are added to cured, smoked and processed meats like deli meats, luncheon meats and sausages, and the purpose of that is to extend their shelf life. But they also they will not extend your life. In fact, they will increase your risk for heart disease and colon cancer. So you want to avoid those and avoid or limit packaged food with words like cured or smoked on them. I don't like smoke, so that's a good thing for me, but um, a lot of people do and processed and deli meat like sausages, ham or bacon. You want to stay away from those as well.

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Something really important we don't get a lot of or enough of in our lives, especially at perimenopause, menopause and postmenopause Is fiber. So you want to eat foods high in fiber for a healthy heart and you want to eat things like oats, oatmeal, barley breads and cereals made with whole grains, so you want to look for those words whole grain. They're typically the flatter breads in the supermarket Peas, beans, lentils. Add those to soups and salads and other dishes you won't even know that you're having them. And obviously, fruits and vegetables at every meal if possible and you know, try and choose more soluble fiber as well. So apples, apricot, artichoke, figs, ground flax, pears, pears, oranges, squash, sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts are so good we see those on the menus in many restaurants these days.

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Mango, oats, okra and also soy foods can help to lower LDL, so try and include things like soy nuts, soybeans, tofu, tempeh and plant sterols can also lower LDL and triglycerides. So small amounts of plant sterols are found in foods like nuts, seeds, oils, fruits and beans, but our everyday foods do not provide enough plant sterols to lower LDL. So you want to ask about increasing that in your diet and ask your doctor about plant sterol supplements or, you know, talk to a nutritionist about foods that contained added plant sterols and also you know if your triglycerides are high. You know you want to limit sugar. That's important and also sweet foods like candies and chocolates and desserts, fruit-flavored drinks, anything that has added sugar, jams, jellies, soda, tonic pop whatever you call it depending on what country you're from Sugar, honey, molasses, sweet baked foods, syrups and limit refined grain foods like lower fiber breakfast cereal.

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People will think, oh, I'm eating cereal, so that's got to be good, but you've got to take a look at it like Lucky Charms and Frosted Flakes. Some of my faves are not good for you. Limit roti or tortilla made with white flour. Of course I love those too. I don't like the corn tortillas, but you know what. You can limit them. Have them every now and again. I might have that every couple of months or every three months, and also pasta made with white flour. I like spaghetti squash and I try to fake that, pretend that that is spaghetti and I just put tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese on it and it's a healthy meal. White bread, white flour, white rice Avoid all of those. White rice can elevate your blood sugar more than a donut.

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Yes, you heard it here on Nurse Maureen's Health Show podcast, and some people might be asked by their doctors to take a fish oil supplement to help lower their triglycerides, and so you might want to talk to your doctor or healthcare provider about how much is correct for you. But you know what? I really recommend the fatty fish, because that contains omega-3 fats. And here we go, a subject that is sensitive for a lot of people limit or avoid your alcohol consumption, because alcohol can increase your triglycerides and drinking less is better for your overall health and relationships all around. You want to talk to your healthcare provider if you have questions about alcohol and your health. Like a lot of people don't know how much they should be drinking, but you know it's really about two drinks a week is the basic recommendation. You know when you're not eating healthy, you can carry extra body weight. You know that central body weight, especially for women at perimenopause, menopause, and so that can also increase your risk of heart disease. But you know, talk to your doctor about that. And you know, if you follow some of the recommendations that I've talked to you about here, just by lowering your cholesterol and triglycerides, then you're probably going to lose weight as well.

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You activity helps to improve your heart health. It also lowers your risk for heart attack, heart disease and other health conditions, and if you're not active now, you want to maybe talk to your healthcare provider or talk to a personal trainer, if you can afford that before you start being active. But you can always start slow. Start with walking. Walking is great not only for exercise, muscle tone, but also for cognition as well, and it'll help you with your memory. You want to aim for, you know, build up to 30 to 60 minutes of activity a week and you know, ultimately the goal is to get your heart to beat a bit faster. But you can also try swimming, biking and playing sports. One of my favorites, of course, if you've ever listened to me before, is tennis. I love skiing, I love swimming, and. But you know what Walking is best for the memory, and a lot of people are concerned about memory, especially as they age, and you know what we lose muscle as we age. So you may want to start lifting weights it doesn't have to be too big and also squeeze your pelvic muscle, your rectal muscle, the muscle that prevents you from passing gas when you are lifting weight, to avoid any risk or damage to your pelvic floor.

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If you're a smoker, it's time to quit. Smoking increases the risk of plaque forming in your arteries, and this is true not only for cigarettes but also for vaping, because vapes contain nicotine as well, and this can raise your risk of heart disease and stroke. I know that vaping has helped a lot of people quit smoking, but then a lot of people vape three times as much as they smoked. It's constant. I was in California recently and I said to somebody is that barbecue on fire? And it was somebody hiding behind it vaping. Anyway, I don't know.

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But you know it's a good idea to look at why you're vaping. You know why you're drinking alcohol. You know when you get to the bottom of it. Are you medicating something? Because there is a small antidepressant effect, especially in nicotine. Anyway, 20 years after quitting smoking, your risk of dying from a heart attack is as low as someone who has never smoked at all. And, um, you know it's important to get that. Help, uh, to quit smoking, uh, and to quit drinking as well, or both one or the other, anyway, anything to get you healthier. But I really appreciate you tuning into the podcast. Anyway, these lifestyle choices are yours and they can help improve your blood cholesterol and triglycerides.

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It can be hard to change your lifestyle, especially if you make too many changes at once. So I recommend that you start slow, maybe journal, you know. Maybe every time you try to, you think about having a cigarette. Maybe go for a walk instead, you know, replace it with a healthy activity, you know. Think about, you know, how much better you're feeling. Your mindfulness is also extremely important. Sometimes we don't see our blood levels and we don't see our cholesterols, and so we're not always mindful of them. We don't think of, you know, the danger that they are instilling on our lives. So it's something to think about. Get them drawn every year, you know. Get them drawn after you've made some changes, after about six months. And, anyway, email me nursetalkathotmailcom If you have any questions.

Speaker 1:

Thanks so much for tuning into Nurse Maureen's Health Show Podcast. Thanks so much for tuning into Nurse Maureen's Health Show Podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in. I'm Maureen McGrath and you have been listening to the Sunday Night Health Show Podcast. If you want to hear this podcast or any other segment again, feel free to go to iTunes, spotify or Google Play or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. You can always email me nursetalkathotmailcom, or text the show 604-765-9287. That's 604-765-9287. Or head on over to my website for more information maureenmcgrathcom. It's been my pleasure to spend this time with you.

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