The holiday season may be known for indulgence, but there’s some good news on the cholesterol front.

Between 1999 and 2006, the prevalence of U.S. adults with high levels of LDL cholesterol (the “bad” cholesterol) decreased by about one-third, according to a study published in the Nov. 18 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Overall, high LDL levels decreased from 31.5% in 1999–2000 to 21.2% in 2005–2006, according to researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the numbers remain less heartening for those with heart disease, stroke and diabetes: a drop from 69.4% to 58.9% over the same period.

And there’s another caveat: A high percentage of adults are not being screened or treated for high cholesterol levels. Screening deficiencies may occur because there’s a lack of consensus on the age at which testing should begin.

“The current guidelines are overly complicated, and a simplified risk-based approach is supported by the current data,” note J. Michael Gaziano, MD, MPH, and Thomas A. Gaziano, MD, MSc, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in an accompanying JAMA editorial.

Suggested Reading

• Children May Have Cholesterol Problems, Too
• Your Organic Diet: Improve Heart Health with Omega-3 Fatty Acids
• Fat Tips for Heart Health
• Closing the Whole-Grains Gap
• Healthy Organic Recipe Substitutions
• Make an Organic Power Salad
• Healthy Breakfast May Prevent Against Heart Disease

Introducing the Haminal! He combines all the qualities of a guinea pig, hamster and a pig, crammed into a can, with no cholesterol, salt or MSG. And at only $15 a piece, I may have to order a 100 of them!

Come on, you know you want one.

Via Serious Eats.

“Garlic supplements, many of which seek to package the benefits of raw garlic in more palatable forms, are promoted as cholesterol-lowering agents and are among the top-selling herbal supplements,” the authors write as background information in the article. Crushing garlic triggers the formation of a compound known as allicin, which has been shown to prevent the formation of cholesterol in the laboratory. But clinical trials on garlic as a cholesterol-lowering agent in humans have been inconsistent.

Christopher D. Gardner, PhD, of Stanford University Medical School, and colleagues enrolled 192 adults ages 30 to 65 who had moderately high LDL levels. Forty-nine participants were randomly assigned to receive raw garlic, 47 to take a powdered garlic supplement, 48 to take an aged garlic supplement and 48 to take a placebo. The amount of garlic consumed in the three garlic groups was the equivalent of an average-sized garlic clove each day, six days per week. Cholesterol levels were assessed monthly, and the chemical composition of the supplements was checked regularly; 169 adults completed the study.

“There were no statistically significant effects of the three forms of garlic on LDL cholesterol concentrations,” the authors write. Levels of other types of cholesterol—including high-density lipoprotein (HDL, or “good” cholesterol), triglycerides and total cholesterol also remained the same. No serious adverse events occurred, although bad body and breath odor were reported to occur often or almost always by 57% of people in the raw garlic group.

“The results of this trial should not be generalized to other populations or health effects,” the authors write. “Garlic might lower LDL in specific subpopulations, such as those with higher LDL concentrations, or may have other beneficial health effects. Based on our results and those of other recent trials, physicians can advise patients with moderately elevated LDL cholesterol concentrations that garlic supplements or dietary garlic in reasonable doses are unlikely to produce lipid benefits."

Tune in tomorrow for another take on this topic.

Book Pick of the Day: Controlling Cholesterol for Dummies