Pork or chicken: Which has more cholesterol?

Keep the salt and fats low in your diet. Meat has high caloric and salt content, which explains why doctors advice their hypertensive patients to avoid meat in their diet.

This is the advice of Sanirose Orbeta, a renowned authority on sports and clinical nutrition and vice president of the Philippine Association for the Study of Overweight and Obesity.

High cholesterol level is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. A build-up of cholesterol in the arteries can lead to atherosclerotic narrowing, which eventually impedes the circulation and brings about a heart attack.

Orbeta explains that there are two sources of cholesterol – the cholesterol we get from our diet and the cholesterol we make in our own bodies. The levels of cholesterol in the body are partially controlled by heredity. Pork and beef are commonly identified as major sources of dietary cholesterol.

But what others do not know is that a lean cut of pork tenderloin has less fat than a skinless chicken thigh. Pigs now also undergo a restricted diet to reduce their fattiness. Today’s pigs are no longer just "slopped."

Believe it or not, most pigs are also placed on a very strict diet. So the pork at the local supermarket now has less fat and cholesterol and fewer calories than the pork of 20 years ago.

Many cuts of pork are as lean or leaner than chicken. Any cuts from the loin – like pork chops and pork roast – are leaner than skinless chicken thigh, according to US Department of Agriculture data.

Pork steaks or roasts from the leg are also lean choices. Most of the loin or leg cuts contain between six and eight grams of fat per three-ounce cooked and trimmed serving. And pork tenderloin – the leanest pork choice – is as lean as skinless chicken breast, with four grams of fat per serving.

A serving of lean pork has 34 percent less cholesterol than skinless chicken, according to recent research at the University of Wisconsin. Most cuts of pork contain less than 200 calories per three-ounce cooked serving.

Practicing portion control is just as important as buying and cooking lean when it comes to thinking "low-fat." The Food Guide Pyramid recommends five to seven ounces from the meat group each day, which can be eaten as two three-ounce servings or as one larger serving.

The American Heart Association recommends no more than six ounces of meat per day. A three-ounce serving of trimmed, cooked meat is about the size of a deck of cards.

People with hypertension can definitely eat naturally cooked pork as long as it is not brined or processed with lots of salt and sodium like tocino or bacon. "One ounce of lean pork contains very little salt, only 18 mg of sodium," explained Orbeta. "Nothing is wrong with eating pork per se. What you do or your lifestyle is what makes it bad. Losing the extra weight is a better cure for hypertension than avoiding pork," she added.

Eating pork does not have to be a "forbidden fruit" of a low-fat diet. Although meat is viewed to be one of the reasons why cholesterol level in the body increases, people with high blood cholesterol should look at their total diet and not just their meat consumption.

There are also cases where the cholesterol level of our body has little to do with our diet. The levels of cholesterol in the body are partially controlled by heredity. Some unlucky people have very high levels of cholesterol because of their genes. If this is the case, a cholesterol-lowering drug is taken to control high cholesterol levels.

Simvastatin, which belongs to the statin class of drug, was found to be one of the most effective among cholesterol-lowering drugs. Landmark studies have shown that a sustained treatment with statins for at least three years significantly cuts the risks of heart attacks and strokes, especially among high-risk patients such as diabetics.

The price of statins, however, could pose a problem. Statins do not come cheap. Their price could be a setback for hypertensive patients who cannot afford this life-saving drug.

To address this problem, Therapharma, a division of Unilab, offers an affordable brand of simvastatin locally marketed as Vidastat. With the advent of this affordable simvastatin which is bioequivalent as the reference drug, it is hoped that the problem of poor patient compliance will also be effectively addressed.