99: Cholesterol, Menopause & Heart Health: What Every Woman Should Know
Dig It with Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball
Persephonica
4.6 • 606 Ratings
🗓️ 4 June 2026
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This special bonus episode of Dig It is brought to you by Benecol, the food lowering cholesterol brand.
This week, Jo and Zoe are joined by registered Dietitian and Dietetic Adviser at HEART UK, Lynne Garton, for an honest and informative conversation about heart health, cholesterol, menopause and the small lifestyle changes that can make a real difference.
Why does cholesterol matter? Why are women in midlife particularly affected? And why do so many people have high cholesterol without even realising it?
Jo also opens up about Disco Steve’s cholesterol diagnosis, family eating habits growing up, and the surprisingly healthy contents of her “big soup meal”.
Benecol is all about “life that keeps on moving” and they’re giving one lucky winner £2,000 towards a holiday of their choice.
To enter:
- Follow Benecol UK on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/benecoluk/
- Head to their pinned competition post
Comment with the song that helps you “set your beat for a better day”
For full terms and conditions, head to the Benecol website - https://benecol.co.uk/
Plant stanol ester has been shown to lower cholesterol. High cholesterol is a risk factor in the development of coronary heart disease. The beneficial effect has been shown with a daily intake of 1.5-3.0g plant stanols, as part, of a healthy diet and lifestyle.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Coming up on Diggett. When it comes to cholesterol and the menopause, hormones play a role. |
| 0:05.6 | So before the menopause, estrogen is generally protected of cholesterol and of the heart and the blood vessels. |
| 0:12.5 | Joe, I've heard about your big soup meal. |
| 0:16.8 | Oh no! |
| 0:18.2 | Crazy concoction. |
| 0:20.1 | By the time something like a heart attack has happened, that is 20, 30, 40 years in the making, |
| 0:27.6 | which is why it's so important to keep your cholesterol lower for longer. |
| 0:32.6 | We'd have toast and we'd have lard or dripping and we'd put it on toast and then we put salt on top as well |
| 0:38.2 | and it tasted absolutely delicious. Is that something you would advise, Lynne? No. All of that |
| 0:43.9 | right after this. This special bonus episode of Digit is brought to you by Ben Acole, the UK's number one |
| 0:57.7 | cholesterol-lowering food brand. |
| 0:59.9 | Today we're talking about something that affects so many of us, often without us even |
| 1:04.5 | realising that is heart health and cholesterol, particularly for women in midlife. |
| 1:09.5 | We're joined by Lingarten, a registered dietitian and dietetic advisor at Heart UK, the cholesterol charity, to help us understand a bit more about heart health and what we can actually do about it. Lynn, hi. Welcome to Digit. How are you? It's been a while. We've worked together before and you are such a font of knowledge. |
| 1:28.1 | And I'm really happy that you're here to talk to everybody else all about heart health. Are you good? I'm very well. Thank you, Jo. And thank you for inviting me onto the podcast. I love it. I love your podcast. Oh, thank you. Well, it's very important what we're about to talk about, isn't it, Zoe? Yeah, it is. So, Lynn, when we talk about |
| 1:44.8 | heart health and cholesterol, we hear people talking about cholesterol all the time. And I'm like, |
| 1:50.4 | what is cholesterol? What are we actually talking about? And why should we all be paying attention |
| 1:56.0 | to it? That's a great question, so, because there is a lot of complexities out there when it comes to |
| 2:03.4 | cholesterol. So cholesterol is a type of fat. We need it. It's essential for life. It's needed to make |
| 2:10.6 | healthy cells, needed to make certain hormones, vitamins and something called bile, which helps |
| 2:16.2 | us digest fat in the gut. The problem is, |
| 2:19.3 | is when we have too much cholesterol in the blood, because what happens then is that cholesterol |
... |
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