While the body needs some cholesterol to build healthy cells, high LDL cholesterol, often called “bad” cholesterol because it collects along blood vessel walls, raises the risk for heart attack and stroke. Medications can lower cholesterol levels, but they often have unwanted side effects, including digestive issues, muscle pain, fatigue, and headaches.

Lifestyle changes, including diet, can lower LDL cholesterol. Eating more fruit, vegetables, and in particular, beans, is an effective way to lower cholesterol, says Dr. Chauncey Crandall, world-renowned cardiologist and director of preventive medicine at the Palm Beach Cardiovascular Clinic in Florida.

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“Beans are the miracle drug that can lower cholesterol,” Crandall tells Newsmax’s “Newsline.”

A study published in The Journal of Nutrition found that adults with elevated LDL cholesterol who ate a cup of canned beans – a daily rotation of black, navy, pinto, dark red kidney and white kidney – for four weeks experienced a decrease in total and LDL cholesterol.

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And Arizona State University researchers found that eating a half-cup of pinto beans daily resulted in an 8% decrease in LDL cholesterol.

Plant sterols and fiber are also important to include in the diet to help lower cholesterol levels, according to Crandall, editor of the popular newsletter Dr. Crandall's Heart Health Report.

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Naturally occurring compounds found in plants, plant sterols help lower cholesterol by interfering with the body’s ability to absorb cholesterol.

Fiber binds to cholesterol and as it exits the body, the cholesterol goes with it. You don’t absorb it, explains Crandall.

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Foods rich in plant sterols include vegetable oils, almonds, walnuts, pistachios, avocados and berries. And high fiber foods include the miracle beans, as well as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and nuts and seeds.

“God has given us all the medicines to stay healthy. So, if we eat anything that's really natural, grown on trees, or something out of the ground, even something that swims through the sea and the rivers, those are things that will work in us,” says Crandall.