Healthy Food Swaps Lower Blood Fat Levels and Diabetes Risk—Try These Easy Changes Today!
You don't have to swear off your favorite foods to see results, either
Sure, you know how important it is to keep your cholesterol levels in check. But it turns out that paying attention to blood fats known as triglycerides is also a smart move, and doing so can help reduce your risk of diabetes and heart disease. One of the easiest ways to do that? Making healthy food swaps—and research backs this up. Keep reading to learn more about how your dietary choices are essential for your long-term health and to discover more ways to lower your blood fat levels naturally.
A study revealed healthy food swaps lower blood fats
A study published in the journal Nature Medicine in 2024 found a way to measure how healthy food swaps (i.e. eating more plant-based protein rather than animal protein) can impact blood fats. Two different approaches were involved: the first was controlled diets (where people eat a specific way over time), and the other was long-term health habits (where people’s health habits are examined over many years).
After 16 weeks, researchers took blood samples and produced a multi-lipid score (MLS). The higher the score, the healthier the blood profile. The results found that those on the plant-based fat diet had better scores than those following the animal-fat diet.
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What’s more, people with a higher MLS score (meaning they had healthier blood profiles) lowered their risk for conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and more.
“We built a closely correlated simplified score, reduced MLS (rMLS), and observed that beneficial rMLS changes, suggesting improved dietary fat quality over 10 years, were associated with lower diabetes risk,” per the study. The study also looked at how foods can impact your diet and people who started with low MLS benefitted the most from food swaps.”Our study confirms with even more certainty the health benefits of a diet high in unsaturated plant fats such as the Mediterranean diet, and could help provide targeted dietary advice to those who would benefit most from changing their eating habits,” said Clemens Wittenbecher, research leader at Chalmers University of Technology and the study’s senior author, in a press release regarding the study.
Additional research backs this up. A study in the journal Frontiers in Endocrinology found that keeping a lid on triglycerides can also deter the damage they do to insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. The result: Your risk of developing diabetes drops by an impressive 62 percent.
Healthy food swaps that lower your blood fats
The recent study results don’t mean you’re limited to a bland, boring diet or have to give up all your favorite foods. Try swapping out animal-based fat for plant-based fat just two times a week to start. And if you’re up for it, give these healthy food swaps a try, too:
Swap out chips for nuts
Nuts such as almonds, walnuts and hazelnuts have an impressive ability to tame high triglycerides—and they deliver the same satisfying crunch less-than-healthy chips do. A study in the journal Cureus found that subjects who enjoyed half an ounce of the nuts (about half a handful) daily lowered their triglyceride levels within four weeks. Authors credit friendly fatty acids in nuts to combat inflammation that can cause triglycerides to climb.
Tip: Prefer peanuts or peanut butter? Harvard research shows they reduce triglycerides, too.
Swap out soda for tart cherry juice
Tart cherry juice does more than add a tangy taste to smoothies, mocktails and sparkling water. It’s also a blood fat-friendly drink compared to soda, which is packed with added sugar. According to a report in the journal Acta Scientific Nutritional Health, drinking 8 oz. of tart cherry juice daily decreases triglycerides within two weeks.
Experts explain that the polyphenol compounds found in tart cherries and their juice tame the inflammation that can trigger triglyceride upticks. Plus, the compounds lower oxidative stress, a process that contributes to triglyceride accumulation.
More ways to lower your blood fats naturally
In addition to making some of the healthy food swaps above, these smart strategies lower your triglycerides over time.
Supplement with Vitamin C
Vitamin C enhances the liver’s ability to remove triglycerides from the bloodstream. In a study conducted at the National University of Health Sciences, investigators found that triglycerides dropped significantly in people who took 500 mg of C daily for four weeks.
Tip: Since the body can only absorb 250 mg of vitamin C at a time, take 250 mg twice daily. You can also increase your intake of foods high in vitamin C, such as red bell peppers (175 mg per cup), strawberries (89 mg per cup), papaya (86 mg per cup), and broccoli (81 mg per cup).
Stand more throughout the day
Replacing sitting with standing while paying bills, sorting laundry, talking on the phone or reading can help lower your triglycerides in as little as one week. So say scientists reporting in the European Heart Journal, who noted the benefit in people who stood instead of sat for two hours each day. The muscle activity triggered by standing upright activates an enzyme known as lipoprotein lipase that assists in breaking down blood fats.
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