Hello there, welcome to the Nutrition Diva podcast on your host Monica Reinegel.

And this week we're talking about cholesterol and fiber and it all came up because of a

great email I got from a listener named Dan.

He wrote, we're told that eating foods like oatmeal, which contains soluble fiber,

can help lower our cholesterol.

And my understanding is that this works because the fiber binds to the cholesterol in your

gut, preventing its absorption.

But we're also told that the amount of cholesterol in your food doesn't make much difference.

Because if you get more in your diet, your body just produces less.

So if the soluble fiber is reducing the absorption of dietary cholesterol, but dietary cholesterol

doesn't matter, then why would that reduce your serum cholesterol?

This is such a great question, but it does require a bit of a deep dive to answer.

But hey, if this is not the place for deep dives into nutrition, nerddom, well, I don't

know where it is.

So let's first talk about how dietary cholesterol affects your blood cholesterol.

About 80% of the cholesterol that's circulating through your body right now was manufactured

in your body, not extracted from your food.

And most of that cholesterol production happens in the liver.

But small amounts are also manufactured in the small intestine.

And Dan is absolutely right.

The liver will ramp its production of cholesterol up or down in response to your dietary intake.

If you take more cholesterol in through your food, the liver will make less and vice versa.

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