What Amount of Cholesterol Should I Take Daily?
Knowing full well it’s difficult to live cholesterol-free, restricting the daily cholesterol intake to 300mg used to be a medical recommendation.
However, recent studies have raised more questions about the benefits of such limits since no strong link exists between dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol. In fact, the American Heart Association says blood and dietary cholesterol are two different things. [1]
According to this advisory [2] and revised guidelines, [3] limiting the amount of saturated fat [4] that we get from foods is the real deal. The thinking is that saturated fat raises bad cholesterol (LDL) in the serum.
So, scientists believe that a cap shouldn’t be placed on the amount of total body cholesterol since plausible evidence is lacking.
However, your doctor may still advise you to keep your total cholesterol level below 170mg if you’re 19 years or younger and below 200mg for 20 years or older. Specifically, LDL should be kept below 100mg/dL for those without risk of CD and 70mg/dL for people at risk.
