Oatmeal – a breakfast that helps lower cholesterol

High cholesterol means you have too much cholesterol, a fat, in your blood. While it may not be dangerous at first, over time cholesterol can build up in your blood vessels, causing blockages and making it difficult for blood to flow normally through your arteries. As a result, high cholesterol is a major risk factor for serious health problems such as strokes and heart attacks.

Reducing cholesterol requires some important lifestyle changes, especially to your diet. Writing in Heart Care Healthy Living magazine, physiologist Ryan Hodgkinson, based in Walsall, recommends that people with high cholesterol try eating overnight oats for breakfast.

Overnight oats are a breakfast or snack made by soaking oats in water, milk or yogurt overnight instead of cooking them in the morning. They are especially delicious when combined with fruits and flavorings such as honey and have become a favorite breakfast dish for many people in recent years.

“Overnight oats are a great way to start the day, they are naturally low in saturated fat, which helps lower blood cholesterol,” he explains, adding that they are filling and help people eat less.

Oats are good for your health because they are rich in a type of fibre called beta-glucan, which has been shown to help lower cholesterol. Heart UK says that eating 3g of beta-glucan a day, as part of a healthy diet and lifestyle, can reduce blood cholesterol.

The organization explains that when beta-glucan is consumed, it forms a gel in the intestines that traps cholesterol-rich bile acids, which means less cholesterol passes from the intestines into the bloodstream. The liver then has to take more cholesterol from the blood to make more bile, which lowers blood cholesterol.

Ryan especially recommends combining oats with yogurt for best cholesterol-lowering results.

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) recommends choosing a low-fat yoghurt as it contains less saturated fat than plain yoghurt, helping to control cholesterol levels. “It is also lower in calories, which can help with weight loss, but be careful with low-fat fruit yoghurts as they often contain a lot of sugar,” the organisation says.