When Mike Wakeman, 65, went for his annual NHS health check last year, the pharmacist expected to walk away with a clean bill of health.
With a keen interest in nutrition, Mike says he has always understood the importance of eating a healthy diet. He is also a cyclist and an avid runner, too – activities he believed were keeping his risk of chronic ill health in-check.
So Mike, from Derby, was shocked to be told that, after undergoing a blood test, he had dangerously high cholesterol – the waxy fat that builds up in arteries and raises the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
While a healthy cholesterol score is anything below 5mmol/L, Mike’s was a concerning 8.5mmol/L.
His GP explained that this – combined with a family history of heart disease – put him at serious risk of life-threatening issues in the near future unless he got his cholesterol levels down.
Mike was prescribed statins, highly effective daily tablets, to help lower his cholesterol levels. But he never took them. Instead, Mike decided to radically change his diet, focusing on one little-known superfood he believed would slash his cholesterol: fermented foods.
Today, his cholesterol is within a healthy range – and he’s never taken a statin.
So, how did he do it? And can fermented food really be the answer to sky-high cholesterol?
Mike Wakeman, 65, went for his annual NHS health check last year expecting to walk away with a clean bill of health but was shocked to hear he had high cholesterol
First, it’s important to explain the nature of cholesterol.
Cholesterol is a type of fat, or lipid, found in all cells in the body.
Good cholesterol, also known as high-density lipoproteins (HDL), carry excess fat in the bloodstream back to the liver where it can be filtered out of the body.
Low-density lipoproteins (LDL), the ‘bad’ kind, work slightly differently, dumping cholesterol in the arteries and increasing the risk of deadly complications.
When HDL levels fall too low, LDL can build up unchecked. Over time, this restricts blood flow, increasing the risk of heart attack, stroke and even dementia.
Concerningly, a shocking six in ten British adults have high cholesterol, figures suggest.
For this reason, the NHS offers more than eight million adults statin tablets. For many, statins can be miracle drugs that bring their cholesterol down to healthy levels.
But they are not right for everyone. About half of those prescribed the tablets fail to reach healthy cholesterol levels after two years.
Nearly eight million people in the UK are on statins – a daily tablet which lowers so-called ‘bad’ cholesterol levels
And, for a small number of patients, statins can trigger uncomfortable side effects including muscle pain, digestive issues, fatigue and headaches.
It’s for this reason that pharmacist Mike chose to forego statins.
‘When you look at the side effects of statins there’s a lot of issues around chronic fatigue,’ he says.
‘I’m really active and I especially love running. The last thing I wanted to do was take something that made me feel like I couldn’t do that anymore.’
Luckily for Mike, there is good evidence that diet changes can be just as effective at bringing down cholesterol levels as statins.
This is because while, for some, high cholesterol can be hereditary, the most common cause of rising levels is poor lifestyle habits.
These can include heavy alcohol consumption, smoking and leading a sedentary lifestyle.
But experts say that diet is arguably the most important factor. Studies show that diets high in saturated fats, such as red meat, and refined carbohydrates, including white bread, pastries and pizza, all raise cholesterol.
In turn, certain diet changes can slash cholesterol levels.
One 2021 study, by researchers at the University of Toronto, found that eating a diet rich in fibre – a type of healthy carbohydrate found in fruits, vegetables and whole grains – can slash harmful LDL cholesterol levels by as much as 35 per cent in one month.
This is because certain forms of fibre form a gel in the digestive tract. This sticky substance then binds to cholesterol, preventing its absorption into the bloodstream and forcing the body to excrete it as a waste product.
But Mike, who has a Master’s degree in pharmaceutical analysis and nutritional medicine, decided he wanted to take the research one step further.
He says he had read studies that showed that fermenting fibrous foods boosted their nutritional value.
Fermented foods are typically vegetables or fruit that are submerged in saltwater for an extended period of time. This creates an oxygen-free environment that allows so-called ‘friendly’ bacteria to flourish.
These microbes are supposed to boost gut health which, Mike believed, could further improve the body’s ability to flush out cholesterol.
This is because, Mike argues, gut bacteria can convert bad cholesterol into coprostanol — a waxy substance that cannot be absorbed by the body.
Bacteria produced in the gut is thought to turn bad cholesterol into a harmless substance called coprostanol
Studies do appear to show that fermented foods can help lower cholesterol.
One research paper published in the Journal of Medicinal Food found that eating a small bowl of kimchi, a Korean dish of fermented salted vegetables (usually cabbage), every day significantly lowers of levels of bad cholesterol by nearly 7 per cent.
Other studies have found that regularly consuming fermented milk products can lower cholesterol by as much as a tenth.
However, Mike also admits that the research supporting the use of fermented food to lower cholesterol is still in its early stages, compared to other more well-known dietary changes, such as eating plenty of fibre.
Instead, he says he decided to focus on fermented foods as a sort of quasi-science experiment, though he says he also enjoyed eating these products.
Of course, fermented foods was not the only dietary change Mike made.
He also stopped eating red meat, limited his alcohol intake and cut back on refined carbohydrates.
But he says boosting his fermented food intake was by far the most significant change he made.
Some studies have linked regular consumption of fermented soy products to improved digestive health and reduced inflammation
And Mike says implementing these into his diet was surprisingly easy. He swapped his morning yoghurt for kefir – a fermented milk drink.
Homemade kimchi also featured alongside almost every meal, as he and his wife became obsessed with the pickling process.
Mike adds that a holiday to Thailand just a week after his annual health check with his wife and children also introduced him to a number of other fermented foods.
‘We were eating a lot more fermented foods such as Thai fermented rice noodles, fish sauce and pickled ginger,’ he says.
‘Our diets were completely different to what they would have been in the UK over the festive period, where we inevitably would have been tucking into cheese boards and other Christmas canapes.
‘When we got back, we kept up this diet as best we could.’
When Mike returned to his GP a year later for his routine check up, he couldn’t quite believe what he saw.
His cholesterol had dropped from a concerning 8.5mmol/L to a healthy 4.8mmol/L.
‘And I never once picked up my prescription,’ he says.
‘My GP clearly seemed happy with the results and said: “See, the statins must be working.”
‘I laughed and asked him if I could let him in on a little secret. “I never took the statins.”‘
Mike has now created his own range of supplements at the company where he works, Evera Nutrition, that boost gut health.
These include the Evera Nutrition Gut Biotic, which costs around £30 for a month’s supply.
And leading experts say that there is good evidence behind Mike’s anti-cholesterol fermented diet.
Dr Federica Amati, one of the country’s leading nutrition experts and the scientist behind the ZOE diet app, says fermented foods can contribute to improvements in LDL cholesterol through their interaction with the gut microbiome.
She said: ‘Research shows that gut microbes may influence cholesterol levels in a couple of ways.
‘Certain species of gut bacteria can convert cholesterol into coprostanol, which can’t be absorbed into your blood.
‘Also, some bacteria absorb cholesterol and incorporate it into their membranes, which also means it can’t be absorbed into your blood.’
She cautioned that, at this stage, scientists simply do not know how important these mechanisms are for managing overall cholesterol levels.
But she added: ‘If gut bacteria reduce cholesterol levels, that could mean that probiotics do, too.’
Mike says he now tells his friends and family to follow his diet.
‘I would certainly recommend this to anyone looking to lower their cholesterol naturally,’ he says.
‘Things like cutting out refined carbs and exercising are all going to help, but this really did work wonders for me.’
