The Functional Medicine approach to high cholesterol differs significantly from the ‘conventional’ approach. The conventional approach involves the prescription of a statin, which treats only the symptom of high cholesterol. The Functional Medicine approach looks towards the underlying causes of high cholesterol and how they can be treated.
We know that, for around 75% of the population, the amount of cholesterol we eat has little impact on the cholesterol in circulation in the body. The liver is responsible for making most of the cholesterol in circulation. The majority of this cholesterol does not originate from the food we eat.
The other 25% of the population may be hyper-responders to dietary cholesterol. In there case, we still start by looking at the possible causes of high cholesterol we discuss in this article. If we still aren’t seeing improvement after addressing possible causes, we may then move to more of a lower fat Mediterranean diet which emphasises mono-unsaturated fats, such as olive oil, rather than saturated fats.
