How a Vegan Diet Could Still Raise Cholesterol | Dr. Kim Williams

The Exam Room by the Physicians Committee

Physicians Committee

Carroll, Health & Fitness, Diabetes, Science, Nutrition, Vegan, Pcrm, Barnard, Weightloss, Food, Health, Recipes, Medicine, Diet

4.9 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 2 September 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You're eating a vegan diet. You're exercising. If you're doing everything "right" but your cholesterol is still high, don't miss this episode of The Exam Room. Dr. Kim Williams breaks down why your diet might be increasing your risk for heart disease, even if you're not eating any cholesterol.

Dr. Williams shares how other countries have lowered rates of heart disease with public policy changes that promote a plant-forward diet, and introducing the traffic light system for nutrition labels. Plus -- he explains why a high-fiber diet is so crucial to lowering cholesterol.

If you feel like you’ve raised your health IQ please leave a 5-star rating and nice review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Discover how to lower your cholesterol with these tips: https://www.pcrm.org/good-nutrition/nutrition-information/lowering-cholesterol-with-a-plant-based-diet

About Us
The Physicians Committee is dedicated to saving lives through plant-based diets and ethical and effective scientific research. We combine the clout and expertise of more than 17,000 physicians with the dedicated actions of more than 175,000 members across the United States and around the world.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today on the exam room.
0:04.0	If a product is indeed vegan, there should not be any cholesterol by definition in there.
0:10.0	And yet still these foods affect the cholesterol. How does that work?
0:13.0	Saturated fat is a great example because it makes you make more cholesterol out of your liver.
0:19.0	And so it ends up in your bloodstream, just as if you had eaten it.
0:22.7	But then the other side is the microbiome.
0:25.3	50% of our DNA is actually not human in our body.
0:30.1	It's all those little microorganisms and some viruses, some fungus here and there,
0:34.1	but it's mostly bacteria.
0:36.1	And we may not like the bacteria between our toes,
0:38.6	but that's not changing your cholesterol. The bacteria in your GI tract is controlling almost
0:46.1	everything, your immune response, how you absorb drugs, how you absorb food, whether or not
0:51.8	you have a leaky gut that makes you ill. And so you have to
0:55.8	protect it. How do you protect it? A whole food, plant-based high fiber diet. If you do the
1:02.2	high fiber diet, it promotes the kind of bacteria that'll make you chop up that cholesterol
1:06.7	that you're making. Welcome to the exam room podcast, brought to you by the Physicians Committee.
1:14.8	Hi, I'm the weight loss champion Chuck Carroll, raising health IQs coast to coast and around
1:19.8	the world.
1:20.9	Hi to the exam room.
1:21.9	He's listening in New Orleans, Louisiana, Des Moines, Iowa, and Puerto Allegre, Brazil. Wherever you are, we appreciate you helping to make
1:30.4	the world a healthier place. This is episode 69 of season 8, number 668 overall. And we are going to do
1:39.1	our best to raise your health IQ by a point or two today, and all we ask in return is that you leave a
	...

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