(Tauren Dyson/ UPI) — Eating a chicken could raise a person’s “bad cholesterol” to similar levels as eating a steak, contradicting long-thought ideas about health differences between the meats, new research suggests.
Researchers found eating white meat poultry may raise low-density lipoprotein levels in the same way as red meat, according to a study published this month in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition. That elevation in bad cholesterol after eating chicken can occur with or without consuming any saturated fat.
“When we planned this study, we expected red meat to have a more adverse effect on blood cholesterol levels than white meat, but we were surprised that this was not the case — their effects on cholesterol are identical when saturated fat levels are equivalent,” Ronald Krauss, director of atherosclerosis research at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute and study senior author, said in a news release. (…)