My cholesterol has gone down 104 points since going vegan 3 years ago. The first 76 points happened without any weight loss and while eating a ton of vegan junk food and being over weight. The next 28 points came from losing 50 pounds this past year by eating mostly whole foods and doing a raw vegen diet for many months. My cholesterol is the lowest it’s ever been.
My doctor told me that people can generally only decrease their cholesterol by about 20% through diet and exercise, because it’s mostly genetic. Mine has gone down 40%. What makes this more impressive is that I was already exercising regularly before all this and didn’t change that at all, so this 40% reduction has been from diet changes only.
My triglycerides are also the lowest they’ve ever been. LDL and VLDL (not pictured) are also the lowest they’ve ever been, and both have never been in normal range until this year.
I also told my doctor how I cured my IBS with a raw vegan diet and she was shocked and said she has no medical explanation why that did it, other than something about eating raw for several months must have fixed my gut biome (which is what I suspected).
Of course I knew it to be true but seeing it firsthand just really makes it sink in how many health issues can be improved by simply avoiding animal products, eating healthy, exercising, and being at a healthy weight.
by DefendingVeganism
7 Comments
Congrats! The medical explanation is your doctor doesn’t know nutrition!
I think it’s interesting how often doing something nice and making it a habit is good for giver too and this is a great example.
This subreddit seems to be full of vegan propaganda I thought this was for people who became plant based for health reasons
Whoah congratulations!
Sounds like your body is saying thank you :))
Similar experience here, except I’ll add my dr took me off Lipitor because cholesterol got too low!
Note I lost about 30 lbs in a year or so as well
I lowered mine 40% in 3 months w diet. That was over three years ago. Still down. When I started, I wasn’t even totally or near total plant based.
A low saturated fat, high fiber diet, mostly or all plants could fix LDL-C for most folks. That’s what I did and still do, but all plants now.
The microbiome produces a vast number of different chemical compounds:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miEngVBrrIc&t=968s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miEngVBrrIc&t=968s)
Well done you!
I always say now: I came for the health benefits but I stayed for the taste and the animal welfare. So we both took different paths but to the same destination.