Hi All,
I am new here. Not sure if it was discussed before. Recently my doctor advised me to do some exercise. He said I may have high cholesterol, test results yet to come.
So I did some research on google and signup for Flora's free lowering kit. Its free after all. floraproactiv.co.uk/proacti...
Just wondering how effective pro.activ is lowering the cholesterol level. Any suggestion will be highly appreciated.
Thanks.
xoxo
Hello,
There are many products that available and are listed in heart UK. Life style change, food intake control and daily exercise can reduce cholesterol. Age is critical factor in reducing cholesterol!
Why not wait for the blood test results first.
Write down all the question you want to ask from your GP and write down all the answers. You need to keep a track of all your results to understand what is going on.
All I can say is give it a try, good luck.
Hi there Al3xandraM
If your cholesterol levels are high then Flora Pro-Activ should help towards a lower figure. There are many products on the market containing plant stannous and plant sterols - which are proven to have this effect. I agree with what bala says so look forward to hearing your results when you get them back from the doctor - but make sure you ask him for the full breakdown of Total Cholesterol (TC), High Density Lipoprotein (HDL), Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL), the ratio and Triglyceride levels. Those figures, your weight, your gender, your lifestyle, your diet - they are all important details in getting to a safe level. Good luck and best wishes.
You could perhaps also do some research on the benefits of removing refined carbohydrates from your diet. There's a lot of interestinginformation out there.
I think they're in the 5%-reduction-at-best category. My notes from a 2009 consultation put them behind oat bran but ahead of replacing dairy with soya, limiting egg and shellfish consumption and eating more antioxidant-rich foods. Of course, I may have misunderstood the reactions of medics, who are very hesitant to explicitly rank such measures, and the advice may have changed in 5 years.
One side note: Flora and most other drinks gave me terrible upset stomachs; Benecol does not. They are slightly different.
I doubt it'll lower cholesterol at all as it's just a marketing ploy. Sorry for being so blunt but the food industry are just as bad as pharmaceutical companies for jumping on the ' cholesterol lowering band wagon'
Over the last few years Japan has raised its Cholesterol intake by almost double, heart disease has dropped by 75% and stroke by even more. Some in the medical profession are asking the powers that be to take a look at Japan and put to bed the cholesterol myth once and for all.
Sorry to disagree Sonyajba but the government's regulations are very - and I mean VERY - rigorous about claims on food packaging. Plant sterols and stanols have been proved to lower cholesterol levels in strictly regulated trials and, as such, food companies are allowed to put the claims on their packaging of foods that contain these items.
plant Sterols and stanols do indeed lower human Cholestrol but works by replacing it with plant Cholestrol.
Human and plant Cholestrol compete for uptake in the gut, so if too much plant sterol is consumed, human Cholestrol falls.
This is not a natural process there is also no evidence that replacing our Cholestrol with plant Cholestrol will lower heart disease or is indeed safe.
No!
Short answer, NO. No proof that it works despite the claims of "clinical trials". Like losing weight it seems another way of preying on the vulnerable. My doctor said the only value in this kind of spread is it stops you eating butter. I think he has a point.
This is only my opinion so do not take it as gospel, you must make up your own mind.
Well I have just read all the replies relating to Flora products, some for some against. My own experience is as follows , I was another who were steered onto Statins and suffered the side effects. So I kicked them into touch and started using Flora pro-active about eighteen months ago, and my last two visits to a wellman clinic over that period resulted in no treatment needed. So I am more than happy with the outcome, give it a try it also nice in a sandwich.
I would love to share with you how these spreads are actually made, I promise you wouldn't want to eat it after.
I explained in above posts why you'll see your cholesterol lowering, you're just replacing your human cholesterol with plant cholesterol.
The process of manufacturer is lengthy but I'm happy to post if anyone's interested
Apart from main claim of lowering cholesterol all margarine and spreads on the market today are made as below.
The main fat in butter is saturated fat making it naturally solid at room temperature. Butter also has a natural colour.
In spreads the first part in the imitation process is to take liquid oils, usually cheap low quality vegetable oils, then turn them into solid fats in some way. The chemical difference between fats solid at room temp and fats liquid at room temp is that the solid fats have hydrogen atoms in the right place providing a more solid and stable structure. This is why butter is one of the safest fats to cook with. So the spread manufacturers need to add hydrogen atoms to their oils in some way.
In the process of hydrogenation, the oils are heated and pressurised and hydrogen gas is added, along with a catalyst like nickel to produce a chemical reaction. The idea is that hydrogen atoms end up in the gaps where they would in saturated fat, Unfortunatley some end up on wrong side of the structure and you end up with not a saturated fat but a completely new fat completely alien to the human body, these are what is known as ' trans fats'.
The substance at the end of this process is grey, smelly and lumpy, so it is bleached, deodorised and emulsifiers are added to smooth things over.
The mandatory vitamins are added in this stage because none could have survived that process. Finally the stuff needs some colour to make it look edible, preferred colour is, yes you've guessed it ' butter'
To conclude the ' how to imitate butter' process, you need a health claim, marketing campaign. The health claim should be two fold
A) this is not bad saturated fat ( tell them what you are not- not what you are)
B) add some plant sterols and then sell as lowering cholesterol benefits.
You couldn't make this up
This article from Patient.co.uk is very comprehensive in its review of sterols/stanols. It is worth noting that you could just have some extra virgin olive oil, as a natural source, rather than an artificial spread.
NICE do not recommend these spreads, although they may lower cholesterol, there has been no evidence linking them to reducing CVD. A very worrying side effect is that they can affect the bodies ability to absorb fat soluble vitamins.
I feel like anyone who has had bad experiences with Proactiv should switch to Citrus Clear. I was using Proactiv but just like everyone else who posts bad reviews about it - it just totally tried my skin out. You need to use something that WONT DRY your skin. I switched to the Citrus Clear Sensitive Line - its fights the acne, without drying your skin. The Citrus Clear COntrol line (which is yellow), totally dries your skin. this one is like proactiv - but the SENSITIVE LINE (which is blue) will not dry your skin.
You need to give it time to work. Read the instructions for the Citrus Clear Sensitive Line and do what it says and you'll have clearer skin without the side effects of dryness.
Be careful of the statin dosage that is prescribed 
Why take statins when my angiogram came out clear?
Cholesterol Update
