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Just two days of oatmeal cut bad cholesterol by 10%

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/02/260225081217.htm
47•gradus_ad•1h ago

Comments

tim-tday•1h ago
My doctor had me on statins because I tested with high cholesterol. I switched to oatmeal for breakfast. Stopped statins tested again. Totally normal.
WarOnPrivacy•1h ago
How do you take your oatmeal?
soopypoos•1h ago
Buttered
derwiki•1h ago
Savory: add a fried egg, soy sauce, and cottage cheese
Noumenon72•56m ago
Like stirred in? Or as sides?
Lord_Zero•49m ago
I think that was a joke, all those things increase cholesterol. Egg yolks high in bad cholesterol, soy sauce has tons of sodium, and cottage cheese high in fat.
KittenInABox•6m ago
IIRC the relationship between cholesterol and diet is more complicated than eating cholesterol == more cholesterol. Especially in this case you're eating cholesterol with a high-fiber meal which prevents a significant amount of the absorption of it.
benatkin•1h ago
Good: Oat flakes. I like Bob's Red Mill in North America and Karavansay in Colombia. Boil them a short time, drain part or all of the water, and eat them with a little bit of honey or a fruit such as blueberries.

Bad: Oatly

nomel•54m ago
I usually eat mine like cereal, uncooked old-fashioned in cold milk, with a bit of honey or brown sugar for flavor. Apparently this is normal overseas.

Steel cut is just a different thing altogether. I like mine a bit on the firm side, with butter, brown sugar. On top, some plain yogurt pair nicely. Cranberries and walnuts are pretty great too.

I think one-minute/instant oatmeal is terrible, no matter how it's prepared, which is unfortunately most people's first experience with oatmeal.

lanfeust6•20m ago
I soak mine overnight with nuts, in water and a tsp of yogurt, then drain/rinse off in the morning. Steel-cut if I'm cooking it stove-top, large-flake if I'm just microwaving the oats. Serve with the nuts, alongside berries and whatever else.

Years ago I'd sometimes go over-the-top with homemade kefir, cocoa nibs, lemon zest. I stopped the kefir habit not so much because of the hassle but because I didn't want to consume that much volume of dairy every day. I get enough lactic acid from kimchi, and protein from other sources.

kulahan•16m ago
I like a splash of maple syrup, oat milk, and maybe half a packet of sweetener if I'm feeling cheeky. Cocoa nibs and dried fruits are excellent too.
tim-tday•14m ago
I use minute oats. Drop in boiling water, toss in a Half handful of raisins or crasins.
nlawalker•12m ago
Peanut butter, chia seed and banana slices.
ThrowawayP•3m ago
If you make plain oatmeal with less water so that it is thick rather than runny, it can be treated like a side dish like mashed potatoes or polenta in a savory meal. It can be a bit odd at first for people who are used to thinking of oatmeal as a sweetened food but it's something one can get accustomed to quickly and avoids the downside of consuming extra sugar.
brianwawok•1h ago
Mmm oatmeal. Breakfast of champions. I usually do it for about 330 days a year. Take a month off every once in a while..
ridiculous_leke•1h ago
What do you have for breakfast before that if I may ask?
tim-tday•16m ago
Used to have a single egg, slice of peperjack cheese draped over it and some fruit. sometimes + meat of some sort. Nothing I thought of as overly unhealthy.
davidmurdoch•1h ago
From what LDL-C or AboB level to what?
Loughla•50m ago
I've eaten oatmeal for breakfast, have a heart healthy diet, and exercise regularly. My total cholesterol and especially LdL are always massively high.

My body hates me.

netcraft•39m ago
I have high cholesterol, have had for more than a decade. Was on a statin, they didnt help. Doubled them, they didnt help. Changed my diet radically, lost 25 lbs (I was a little overweight, but not bad), ate full medeteranian diet and did everything I could, my numbers didnt budge. Changed to a stronger one and within two weeks my numbers were perfect.

I believe for some of us its purely genetic.

lowercased•8m ago
"Changed to a stronger one"

Changed to a stronger one what?

dralley•33m ago
My LDL is stuck between 145 and 155 permanently. Same for my mom and aunts. Oatmeal, exercise, etc. doesn't help.

I'm still young so my doctor isn't terribly concerned, but in 10 years I'll probably have to be on statins.

rmast•11m ago
What do you mean by heart healthy diet?

Denny’s “heart healthy” egg whites, lean meats, etc? Or strict whole food plant based?

brandonb•1h ago
Fiber is the ultimate nutritional power tool.

Not only does fiber reduce cardiovascular mortality by 26% (by cutting cholesterol), surprisingly enough, fiber even reduces your risk of cancer by 22%: https://www.empirical.health/blog/dietary-fiber-reduces-all-...

(Oatmeal is high in fiber, among other things, which I think is part of what's going on here.)

davidmurdoch•1h ago
Oatmeal is extra special because of it has high amounts of beta glucan, a soluble fiber.
canadiantim•47m ago
I'd bet that oatmeal helps cancer due to increased elimination from the GI system, like any fibre
happytoexplain•36m ago
Wait, how does fiber cut cholesterol?

The article is a little densely worded.

jjtheblunt•34m ago
iirc, from older articles, which differ from this nice result, bile acids contain cholesterol(s) and they're generally reabsorbed in the intestines, so the fiber is conjectured to bind with some before reabsorption, expelling the bound fraction of circulating cholesterol in feces.

this result in the paper is very interesting in the conjecture is that the gut microbiome is altered in a beneficial way, and that the effect (with the resulting lowering of cholesterol) persists for weeks after even 2 days of oats.

kulahan•20m ago
We know almost nothing about how digestion works, but fiber has the added benefit of lining your intestines, preventing the absorption of some nutrients. It also helps push things through, so they spend less time sitting around being absorbed.
buzzerbetrayed•18m ago
Oh boy. Now we’re entering the fiber era. We’re just leaving the protein era. Before that it was the intermittent fasting era. Before that it was the keto era. The low fat era was probably a few before that.

I hear about fiber constantly all of the sudden. You might be right about it, but how do we know it’s different than. All the past nutrition tends?

rybosworld•9m ago
It is funny how you can break diet/nutrition into generations like this.

I think the trends are a reflection of poor education. Fiber/protein/whatever being important components of a diet isn't new information. But the information is new to folks that never had nutrition explained to them.

lanfeust6•14m ago
In related fashion, you might be interested in reading about the impact of soy protein.
joshribakoff•1h ago
This has been widely known in bodybuilding and powerlifting circles, people abusing performance enhancing drugs eat things like oats to mitigate the harmful effects of the drugs on their cholesterol, and regularly do blood work to monitor it and see that it is working.
delichon•1h ago
Oatmeal reliably spikes my blood sugar. Not as much as many other carbs, but enough that I avoid it. Each time an insulin resistant person eats it, it causes a little more permanent damage.

Four out of ten US adults are insulin resistant.

I have no idea how to balance the blood sugar damage with the cholesterol damage.

nomel•59m ago
I would think the type and preparation would play a significant role. There's steel cut (which can be made soft or "chewy"), firmer "old fashioned", and the quick dissolving mush that is one-minute.
david-gpu•59m ago
Not all oatmeal has the same effect on blood sugar. Steel cut oats are absorbed more slowly than instant oats. Toppings on your oatmeal also affect blood glucose in non-linear ways, the same as any other combination of foods.
clumsysmurf•41m ago
Try oat groats, this will have the lowest GI. You can cook them like rice, even in a rice cooker, using the same technique ... for a firmer result use less water and cook for less time. You can start off with roughly 1:1 ratio of oat groats to water. I do .75 cups oat groats to 1.25 cups water.
lanfeust6•27m ago
glycemic index of steel cut is low, whereas large-flake is medium-high, and instant oats are high. Though you have to account for load.

My approach is to have a modest amount and increase the nuts and chia mixed with it, alongside berries and yogurt.

3eb7988a1663•1h ago
I did this after it was first posted. My cholesterol is great, but it is a simple enough intervention, I mostly did it for the lols.

Not terribly difficult, you never feel hungry. The worst part was how sore my jaw felt from the excessive chewing of the bulk mass. Which is funny for something so mushy, but my instinct was to chew it a good amount. Also, it is a lot of fiber. Feel like the effect might just have to do with cleaning out every surface of my digestive tract.

mrbombastic•12m ago
I did it as well, 2 days of oatmeal (plus some chicken and toppings) and then oatmeal most days just one meal. Didn’t expect much…my cholesterol dropped 25% over a period of 3 months. One data point, will do another 2 days and see in another 3 months.
jader201•52m ago
Previously (30 days ago, 355 points, 268 comments):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46819809

alun•49m ago
Oatmeal has become my favorite breakfast by far. It's delicious and never seems to never give me the "crash" that people describe with other carbs (probably due to it's low GI). Very easy to blend them into my protein shakes after a morning workout too.
heohk•32m ago
Is it the oatmeal itself or the glyphosate present in all oatmeal?
dataviz1000•17m ago
Steal-cut oatmeal made in Insta Pot is the best thing in the world. I do 2.5 to 1 ratio. It is important to not let the steam out. It takes about 30 minutes plus another 10 to cool. Set it and forget it. Add raisons and cinnamon at the end. Or, let freshly minced ginger steep with some orange zest.
fumeux_fume•1m ago
I make it on the stove top. It also takes 30 minutes to cook and 10 to cool. My ratio of water to dry oatmeal is 3 to 1 by weight in grams and I mix in honey after it's done.
lanfeust6•15m ago
I consume these so often for breakfast that I've calibrated the "core" meal many times. Personally I think the optimal amount is less than you would think, to make room for other ingredient pairings like berries, nuts and fermented dairy.

It's not the laziest method but I like soaking them overnight. Without being too fussed about phytic acid in a balanced diet, soaking still improves digestibility and nutrient absorption.

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