Hi! I'm Stelios Pantazis.

I'm a doctor and I specialize in
medical nutrition and metabolic disorders.

Today, I'd like to talk about the way
diet influences cholesterol,

but in the opposite way
from what you usually hear.

Not with foods that increase cholesterol,
which we should stop eating,

but with foods that lower cholesterol,
which we should eat more.

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So, today, I'd like to talk
about cholesterol.

While a big part of the articles
I read on the internet about cholesterol

focuses on what we shouldn't eat,

such as animal products,
saturated fat, dairy products,

meat, especially processed meat,

foods such as pastries
that contain a lot of margarine,

or processed carbohydrates, which increase
cholesterol if consumed in excess,

in this video, I'd like to focus on
what we should eat to lower cholesterol,

because it's really useful not to eat
the foods that increase cholesterol,

but it's even more useful to enrich our diet
with foods that lower cholesterol.

These are the plantbased foods,
but they're not all the same.

Namely, carrot and spinach
don't have the same effect on cholesterol.

We'll see why.

First of all, you may have heard
that 83% of the cholesterol

running through our blood
at any given moment

is cholesterol produced by our own body.

Our body uses cholesterol
and its products in many ways:

in the production of hormones,
in the digestion of fatty acids etc.

In the cholesterol cycle in our body,

cholesterol enters the bile as bile salts

and from the bile,
it is secreted into the intestine,

where it helps in the digestion
and absorption of fatty acids.

Something impressive happens there.

Because our body needs cholesterol

and, for many years, it used
to be rare in nature,

because humans used to eat
mainly plantbased foods,

which are cholesterolfree,

a system has been developed that recycles
the cholesterol secreted into the intestine.

Namely, cholesterol is secreted
into the intestine,

from there it helps
in the digestion of fatty acids,

and when it reaches the ileum,
it is reabsorbed,

the body takes it back,
it does not want to lose it,

and it puts it back in the bloodstream,
back in use.

This valuable recycling system
used to keep us alive

in times when our diet had
hardly any, if at all, cholesterol,

when animal products were very few
in our daily diet.

But today, due to animal products,
cholesterol is in abundance in our diet,

and this means
that we don't need it that much

and it must be eliminated.

How can it be eliminated?
Foods that eliminate cholesterol

are highfiber foods,

because fibers absorb cholesterol
like a sponge,

they don't let it be recycled in the ileum,

therefore it's not recycled,

it enters the large intestine
and it is eliminated in the feces.

There lies a secret.

Because many people say
they have a healthy diet,

they don't eat meat or French fries,

but their cholesterol remains high. Right.

I see this all the time.

Cholesterol will not improve, if we don't
add this factor in the process.

Not eating meat is not enough.

And if someone eats
average quantities of meat,

they may not see a big difference
by reducing it by 5060%.

On the contrary, they'll see
a big difference

if they continue eating the same quantities
of meat and add highfiber foods.

Let's see which are highfiber foods.

First of all, the husk of grains,
namely bran.

There are pastries rich in bran,
the socalled wholegrain pastries.

In a previous video, I explained how
we'll distinguish real wholegrain foods.

There are pastries made exclusively of bran,

there are breakfast cereals
made exclusively of bran.

These are all very good choices.

The next great choice is
the foundation of the Mediterranean diet,

which is greens, exclusively fibers.

They're ideal for the reduction
of cholesterol,

a oneway street, in my opinion.

In the '50s, greens were
what bread and potatoes are today

in Greece, especially
in mountainous or semimountainous areas.

This is what lowers cholesterol.

Greens, which are full of fibers.

They're essentially pure fibers.

These fibers lock in bile
and it is eliminated through the feces.

Vegetable dishes cooked in olive oil
are also high in fiber.

And legumes contain about 1015 gr
of fibers in 100 gr,

which is a good quantity.

However, we need 3040 gr a day.

Therefore, I'd like to focus on this.

On the contrary, the socalled starchy
vegetables don't contain a lot of fibers,

such as carrot, potatoes, beets.

These are very useful, very tasty,
they're included in our diet,

but they don't help us
eliminate cholesterol from our body.

The foods we mentioned are
the most significant: greens, legumes,