Hello and welcome to Zoe Shorts, the Bite Size podcast where we discuss one topic around

science and nutrition. I'm Jonathan Wolf and today I'm joined by Dr Sarah Berry and today's

subject is Food to Lower Cholesterol. So Jonathan around half the adult population in the UK and the

US have high cholesterol and many people are completely unaware that they have high cholesterol.

Medication to reduce cholesterol is projected to be worth almost 20 billion dollars by

2027. Now we all know that statins are one of the most prescribed drugs globally but there may be

other ways that we can reduce our blood cholesterol levels. Specifically the food that you eat.

So Sarah with your years of experience in the field I'm sure you have some terrific insight into

how dietary changes can reduce cholesterol. Yeah there's some fabulous research out there showing

just how much diet can impact our blood cholesterol levels. Then let's get into it.

Let's start with some really shocking numbers Sarah. The World Heart Foundation states that

high cholesterol causes 4.4 million deaths every year. That's around 7% of all deaths. So clearly

high cholesterol is a global health issue. Yeah that's right Jonathan and beyond deaths the latest

data from America's Center for Disease Control and Prevention states that nearly 94 million

American adults could be considered to have high blood cholesterol levels.

And I know we've discussed cholesterol before on this show but if you're like me you find it all

a bit complicated and about 10 minutes after Sarah explains it you forget the whole thing. So Sarah

could you just start again and remind us what is cholesterol? So cholesterol is made in Oliver

and our bodies actually need it to produce things like vitamin D,

bile acids, hormones and also create all the new cells in our body.

And I know we discussed on our previous podcast that you can go and listen to if you're interested

that there was also cholesterol in some of the foods we eat and we call that dietary cholesterol

...