Dr Rachana Jasani shares tips to lower triglycerides by over 100 mg/dl in 3 months

Dr. Rachana Jasani, is a distinguished PhD holder and a Registered Dietitian with over 15 years of expertise in Clinical Nutrition especially Indian Renal Diet. Dr. Rachana Jasani’s expertise is in providing personalized diet plans customized according to your body needs, focusing on individual choices and preferences keeping in mind regional and cultural attibutes. How I Managed series? – is a scientific evidence based series of real life cases simplified by Dr Rachana Jasani in her words below

” I usually connect with my patrons on a 1 to 1 basis. I try to deep dive into not only their blood parameters, food habits, likes and dislikes, lifestyle but also their genetics and family history. Below given values are real and verifiable from our linkedin post, click here to see the bood reports.

Case:

I received a case of a 44 year old lady who is a lawyer by profession and had done a routine health check. It was found that her lipid levels levels were deranged. She also had complains of recurrent cold and cough and often she would get easily fatigued (tired). Although she knew that she had to walk to stay healthy but she could just not adhere to a walking routine as she would start getting leg aches after walking just 1-1.5 mile (2 km)

When I enquired about her eating patterns , she said although she was not hooked up to eating outside on a regular basis but she had a maid who would cook for her entire family. When i enquired further into her daily eating habits, i got to know the following which may resonate with few of my readers as well:

– Morning she said she would usually have a cup of coffee with 2-3 toasts

– Her lunch most of the days was 2 chapatis with a vegetable

– Evening she would again prefer just a coffee with at times indulgence into some bhakhar wadi or chakli or chivda or farsans

– Dinner was usually again 2 chapatis with vegetables and some rice, dal only 2 days a week and 1-2 eggs 2 days a week

– Dinner was at times followed by a cold coffee (2 days a week)

– Her monthly comsumption of oil was 3L, ghee was 250-300 grams while that of butter was 200 grams for 3 members (2 adults and 1 teenager)

– The milk consumption was 1 L a day – buffalo milk. When i asked whether she would skim the milk she said the maid didnt have time to do that and so maid would use the fresh milk daily

-As I knew she was a Maharastrian and Maharashtrian food contains more of coconut, so when I enquired she said the intake of coconut for her family of 3 members was 2 watis a week. This was enough to give me an indication that the maid was used to using coconut in all the food items on a regular basis and that too in excess quantity

-When I enquired about her family history, she said her father was taking statins (cholesterol lowering drugs) for over 20-22 years. He also has central obesity (typical in Indians) and he developed diabetes at the age of 53 years. Her elder brother too was on statins. This was an indiction that she had a strong family history of dyslipidemia (deranged cholesterol levels)

Statistics of high levels of cholesterol in India:

Recent statistics as per a study conducted by ICMR-INDIAB indicate that abnormal levels of cholesterol are prevalent in 81.2% of Indian population. This a huge number and also a warning signal for young individuals as they too are susceptible to early cardiac events. Inorder to tackle this condition, I gave this lady the following suggestions to lower her triglycerides as well as gradually improve her immunity levels:

1. Stop refined flour completely and switch to a millet based breakfast: I suggested her to prefer sorghum (jowar)/ ragi(nachni)/ buckwheat (kuttu)/ rolled oats based upmas with vegetables.
2. Stop full fat milk completely and instead switch to a plant based milk: Unsweetened oat milk or soya milk or almond milk (Plant based milk are fortified with vitamin D and hence are beneficial for ones who have issues of recurrent cold and coughs). To check out our healhty protein rich soya milk and oats smoothie recipe, click here
3. Prefer proteins with each meals: Proteins can be taken either in the form of egg whites or curd or soya or dals and pulses. All protein rich items are good sources of calcium, phosphorus, vitamin D all of which help to improve the immunity levels, soya has cholesterol reducing properties and defatted soya atta is easily available on Amazon/ Flipkart
4. Prefer more fruits as mid-morning and mid-evening snakcs: (Fruits provide good dietray fiber which is essential to lower the triglycerides)
5. Go easy on coconut especially dry coconut: as it contributes to saturated fats
6. Limit the consumption of fats: as the food was not cooked by her, the amount of fats consumed was not supervised carefully. I asked her to gradually lower it to 1.5 L total fat consumption and that she should toally avoid buffalo milk based ghee and cream/ butter. It explained her to either shift to cold pressed oils or obtain commercially available blend of oils
7. Walking daily for 90 mins
8. Check vitamin D levels and if found low, then take supplements of vitamin D

These diet modifications were suggested for a period of 12 -15 weeks ( no medications were given by the treating Physician as he wanted to give her 6 months time duration to lower the lipids through diet and lifestyle modifications)

The results after 16 weeks were as below:

• A drop of 118 mg/dl in triglycerides
• A drop of  23.6 mg/dl in VLDL (very low density lipoprotein)
• A drop of 26 mg/dl in total cholesterol
• An increment of 12 mg/dl in HDL (High Density Cholesterol)
• A drop of 38 mg/dl in non-HDL cholesterol

So, this is how it is clearly manageable to lower the dreaded triglycerides with a few dietary modifications and lifestyle changes. If you know anyone who needs these tips, please do share this content. If you have any queries, please leave them in comment section”

For a 1 to 1 diet consultation with Dr Rachana Jasani, you can get in touch with us on 7208363223 

At NutriKonnect, we offer healthy recipes to reduce cholesterol levels, these recipes are 100% plant based, ZERO added sugar and high fiber recipes. They have been carefully curated by Dr Rachana Jasani, to avail these recipes, click here. This recipe course is ideal even for individuals with diabetes or high cholesterol levels. These recipes are also suitable for ones with obesity with high cholesterol or obesity with high triglyceride levels. All these recipes have been created by Dr Rachana Jasani and the copyrights are solely with NutriKonnect.