Studies suggest that low fat diet lowers the cholesterol level, but low fat diet rich in vegetables is healthier.
Two kinds of low fat diets were compared in the study. The first kind was traditional low fat diet, while the other was low fat diet with increased portions of vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. The two diets had other ingredients of total fat, saturated fat, protein, carbohydrate, and cholesterol content identical to each other. The research was done on 120 participants of age 30 to 65 years whose low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol concentrations were 3.3 to 4.8 mmol/L (130 to 190 mg/dL), body mass index of less than 31 kg/ m2 noted before the study. All of them were of general good health.The diet plan, which continued for four weeks, the low-fat-vegetables-diet had a positive effect on the health by reducing more of both total cholesterol and the LDL cholesterol in the people who had the diet and not the low-fat-diet.
Researchers are of opinion that it is possible to have greater improvements in LDL and total cholesterol on top of having a low fat healthy diet by incorporating vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains.
