Lyle Hurd: We are back with Robert Kowalski, the author of “The new 8-Week Cholesterol Cure” We haven’t talked about lowering cholesterol, now I understand that there are three major paths, would you explain what the three are and lets attack them one at a time so go ahead and we will start with the first one. Robert Kowalski: Ok, the first one of course is diet and one of the previous times we were together we talked about what to avoid and that simply enough, very simple these days is saturated fat and the trans-fats that are found in the processed foods and the fast foods and so forth. We can get rid of those pretty easy by cutting back on the fast foods, choosing processed foods that are made without the trans fats and in terms of the saturated by getting rid of the fatty cuts of meat and instead choosing the lean cuts and the same thing with the dairy. Lyle Hurd: Certainly. Robert Kowalski: But, those are the negatives, those are the negatives. Let’s look at the positives because that is far more important so many things that we can do to protect our health, lower our cholesterol. One, at least twice a week by all means, fish in the diet I happened to be blessed I love fish, I prefer, I actually prefer a wonderful piece of wild caught salmon over a steak, a beef steak. I just absolutely love salmon. In restaurants I will order that probably 80 percent of the time. I just really enjoy it; my wife on the other hand actively dislikes fish, so she gets a supplement of the omega-3 fatty acids that are an active component in fish. The Eskimos never get heart disease, never ever get heart disease because that omega-3 fatty acid. What else can we do? It started off with the oat bran, remember, the original book 20 years ago. The fact is that oat bran still, things haven’t changed, the reason it lowers cholesterol is because it is rich in the soluble fiber called beta glucan. Beta glucan mixes with water that’s what makes it a soluble fiber. It blends with water to form a gel and as that gel moves through the digestive tract it’s pictured like a glacier literally picking up the byproducts of cholesterol called bile in the digestive tract. Bile is made from cholesterol; normally it gets recycled by the body. Instead, the oat bran, this beta glucan, moves it through the digestive tract and eliminates it. That means that the body has to make more of the bile to proceed with the next digestion process with the next meal. It does so by drawing the cholesterol out of the blood stream and down the cholesterol level goes. But it is not just oat bran, it is uh all of the foods that are rich in the soluble fibers and that would include beans of all sorts that start off as dry beans so red beans, black beans, kidney beans, pinto beans, garbanzo beans you name it all of those are again as rich or even richer as oats in the soluble fiber. Figs, wonderful, wonderful fruit, loaded just concentrated in soluble fiber delicious to eat as a snack either fresh or cooked or dried, great source. Prunes and raisins another great source of soluble fiber as is barley. So there are a number of these foods that can actively lower cholesterol.