Foods That Lower Cholesterol: What Really Works

The short answer: the foods that lower cholesterol most are oats and barley, beans, nuts, soy, fatty fish and foods with added plant sterols, especially when they replace butter, fatty meat and pastries. Each one usually lowers LDL by only a few points. In a Canadian trial of people cooking for themselves, combining them cut LDL by about 13% in six months.

High cholesterol doesn’t usually cause symptoms, so a blood test is the only way to know you have it. LDL is the one that matters most here. Too much of it builds up in your arteries and raises your risk of heart disease, and the foods below work on it in different ways. That’s why a mix beats any single superfood.

What foods lower cholesterol the most?

Soluble fiber binds cholesterol in your gut and carries it out of your body. Plant sterols block it from being absorbed. Unsaturated fats lower LDL directly. Here’s what the research shows for each. We converted some results to mg/dL and rounded them, so treat them as rough guides.

Food	Amount tested	What it does to LDL	How strong is the evidence?
Foods with added plant sterols or stanols	About 2g a day	Down about 9%, or 13 mg/dL	Strong: 84 trials
Oats	3.5g of beta-glucan fiber a day	Down about 7 mg/dL	Strong: 58 trials, though results varied a lot
Tree nuts	Per daily serving	Down about 5 mg/dL	Strong: 61 trials
Soy protein	25g a day	Down about 5 mg/dL	Strong: 41 trials
Beans, lentils, chickpeas	About 1 serving a day	Down about 7 mg/dL	Moderate: 26 trials, and the authors want longer, better ones
Olive, canola and other liquid oils	In place of butter or lard	Lowers LDL, with the size depending on what you replace	Strong for the swap
Fatty fish	2 to 3 times a week	Helps mostly by replacing fatty meat, and lowers triglycerides	Moderate: the LDL effect is indirect

Sources: the trial reviews listed at the end, plus Harvard Health for the fish and oil rows. The strength ratings are our own summary of those reviews.

Sterol-fortified foods can include some margarines, orange juices and granola bars, so check the label. Twenty-five grams of soy protein is a lot of soy, about 10 ounces of tofu or 2½ cups of soy milk. For more soluble fiber, our high fiber foods list has real numbers for beans, oats and fruit. Fish oil capsules are a different story, as we explain in is fish oil worth taking.

What is a good cholesterol level?

Here are the general US numbers for adults, from MedlinePlus and Cleveland Clinic. All are in mg/dL.

Measure	Healthy for most adults	Too high or too low
Total cholesterol	Under 200	200 to 239 is borderline, 240 or more is high
LDL (the "bad" kind)	Under 100	100 to 129 is elevated, 130 to 159 is borderline, 160 to 189 is high, 190 or more is very high
Non-HDL	Under 130	Above 130
HDL (the "good" kind)	60 or more is best	Low is under 40 for men, under 50 for women
Triglycerides	Under 150	150 to 199 is borderline, 200 or more is high

Your own goal may be lower. MedlinePlus lists an LDL of 70 or below for people at high risk or with heart disease, and 55 or below for those with heart disease at very high risk. If your results are in mmol/L, the NHS guide is total cholesterol below 5, non-HDL below 4, and HDL above 1.0 for men or 1.2 for women.

MedlinePlus says younger adults should get tested every 5 years, with more frequent checks later in life. Your doctor may suggest a different schedule based on your risk and family history.

What foods should you avoid with high cholesterol?

Saturated fat comes first. MedlinePlus says it raises LDL more than anything else in your diet. The NHS suggests eating less of these:

Meat pies, sausages and fatty meat
Butter, lard and ghee
Cream and cheese
Cakes and cookies
Foods made with coconut oil or palm oil

US guidelines say to keep saturated fat under 10% of your calories, which is about 22g on a 2,000-calorie day. The stricter TLC cholesterol plan aims for under 7%, or about 13g. One tablespoon of butter has 7g.

This matters beyond your lab results. A Cochrane review of long-term trials found that cutting saturated fat lowered heart attacks, strokes and similar events by 17%, with little or no effect on deaths. You also don’t have to give up every piece of cheese. We looked at the newest research in is full-fat dairy healthy.

Trans fat raises disease risk even in small amounts. It’s been removed from many foods, but check ingredient lists for partially hydrogenated oil. Which fat you cook with matters too, and our guide to the healthiest cooking oil compares the options.

How quickly can food lower cholesterol?

Expect weeks to months. The trials we read mostly ran from three weeks to six months, and we found no good evidence for a seven-day fix.

The most striking result came from a tightly controlled one-month trial of 46 adults. LDL fell 28.6% on the combined foods diet, compared with 30.9% on a low-fat diet plus a statin and 8% on the low-fat diet alone. That’s rarely what happens in a normal kitchen, though. When 345 adults followed the same plan at home for six months, LDL fell about 13% to 14%, compared with 3% on low-fat advice. That was about 25 mg/dL, and people who stuck to it more closely did better.

Food can do a lot, but some people still need medicine. MedlinePlus says to keep up the healthy habits even if you take it. Never stop or change a cholesterol medicine without talking to your doctor.

How can you reduce cholesterol without medication?

Start with one swap this week, then add another. A day built on these foods could look like this:

Breakfast: oatmeal with a banana or strawberries. The oats give you 1 to 2g of soluble fiber, and the fruit adds about half a gram.
Lunch: lentil or bean soup, or a salad with chickpeas and an olive oil dressing.
Snack: a small handful of almonds or walnuts in place of chips.
Dinner: sheet pan salmon with vegetables instead of a fatty cut of red meat.

Your other habits count as well:

Move. The NHS suggests at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week, such as brisk walking.
Quit smoking. Smoking can raise cholesterol, and quitting can raise your HDL.
Sleep. MedlinePlus links 7 to 9 hours a night with a lower risk of high LDL.
Drink less. See how much alcohol is safe for what the latest research found.

The same way of eating helps your arteries in other ways. If your blood pressure is also up, read our guide on how to lower blood pressure.

Is high cholesterol genetic?

It can be. Familial hypercholesterolemia is an inherited condition that causes very high cholesterol and affects about 1 in 200 to 1 in 250 people. It raises the risk of heart disease at a young age, so it’s worth catching early.

Talk to your doctor if your LDL is 190 or higher, your cholesterol stays high even though you eat well, or close relatives had heart disease young. It’s also worth asking for a test if you’ve never had one.

If you’d like an easy first habit, adding fruit to your morning oats is a good start, and a banana every day is one simple way to do it.

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Quick questions

Does oatmeal lower cholesterol?

Yes, by a modest amount. A review of 58 trials found that about 3.5g a day of oat beta-glucan fiber lowered LDL by roughly 7 mg/dL. A bowl of oatmeal gives you only 1 to 2g of soluble fiber, so it works best alongside other cholesterol-lowering foods.

Are eggs bad for cholesterol?

For most people, eggs have less effect on cholesterol than you might expect. Harvard says the cholesterol in food affects blood levels less than the mix of fats you eat. One large yolk has about 200mg of cholesterol, so be more cautious if you have diabetes or your LDL is hard to control.

Can you lower cholesterol in 7 days?

We found no good evidence that you can. The food trials we read mostly ran from three weeks to six months. A healthy week is still a useful start, but a blood test after seven days may not show much. Ask your doctor when to retest.

What foods lower cholesterol and triglycerides?

Fatty fish such as salmon and mackerel are the best known, because their omega-3 fats reduce triglycerides. Tree nuts also lowered both in a review of 61 trials, though the triglyceride drop was small at about 2 mg/dL per daily serving. Limiting alcohol can help too, since drinking can raise triglycerides.

Does olive oil lower cholesterol?

It helps most when it replaces a saturated fat such as butter or lard. Harvard says using liquid vegetable oils in their place lowers LDL, and the NHS lists olive oil among foods to eat more of. Adding it on top of your usual diet is a different thing, so make it a swap.

Is high cholesterol reversible?

High cholesterol can often be brought down with food, exercise and, for some people, medicine. In one six-month trial, a cholesterol-lowering diet cut LDL by about 13%. MedlinePlus says to keep up the healthy habits even if you take medicine, so think of it as a long-term change.

This article is general information, not medical advice. If you have high cholesterol or heart disease, or take a cholesterol medicine, talk with your doctor before making changes.

Foods that lower cholesterol: what works and by how much