New US dietary guidelines will change cholesterol limits

by Stepy — March 7, 2015

It is still a common belief that eating foods with high cholesterol can cause a major increase in cholesterol levels and increase heart disease risk.

Many people also avoid healthy foods with cholesterol such as butter and eggs, because of public-health guidelines.

In 2010, US dietary guidelines referred to cholesterol-rich foods as “foods and food components to reduce.” At this time, it was advised to eat no more than 300mg of cholesterol per day, even though cholesterol in the diet has little to do with body cholesterol levels.

In the upcoming 2015 guidelines, this notion of dietary cholesterol being unsafe may change. Forbes reports that US dietary guidelines will change cholesterol limits.

The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) recommends that the dietary limits for cholesterol be removed in the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

“It’s the right decision. We got the dietary guidelines wrong. They’ve been wrong for decades,” Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Dr. Steven Nissen told USA Today.

Dr. Nissen believes that only about 20 percent of blood cholesterol comes from diet. The liver creates the remaining cholesterol, because the human body needs cholesterol.

A study from South Carolina, which was published in the Journal of Nutrition found no association between blood cholesterol levels and consumption of red meat, animal fats, butter, eggs, and more.

This supports the view that dietary cholesterol may not be as dangerous to heart health as once thought.

According to Chris Masterjohn, who received his PhD in nutritional sciences from the University of Connecticut:

“Since we cannot possibly eat enough cholesterol to use for our bodies’ daily functions, our bodies make their own. When we eat more foods rich in this compound, our bodies make less. If we deprive ourselves of foods high in cholesterol — such as eggs, butter, and liver — our body revs up its cholesterol synthesis.

The end result is that, for most of us, eating foods high in cholesterol has very little impact on our blood cholesterol levels. In seventy percent of the population, foods rich in cholesterol such as eggs cause only a subtle increase in cholesterol levels or none at all. In the other thirty percent, these foods do cause a rise in blood cholesterol levels.

Despite this, research has never established any clear relationship between the consumption of dietary cholesterol and the risk for heart disease… Raising cholesterol levels is not necessarily a bad thing either.”

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