First of all, you need to analyze whether you actually have a cholesterol problem or not. High blood pressure is due to a nutritional deficiency. Please understand that doctors and drug companies are promoting bad information in the form of indoctrination, not education. They either do NOT understand how fats work in the body or have an agenda where profits are too much of a temptation to pass up. Cholesterol is NOT a fat. It is a form of alcohol that has the ability to have fatty acids attach to it and therefore becomes a TRANSPORTER of fatty acids around the body. One form, and only one form of cholesterol has the potential of contributing to plaque build up in the arteries and that is LDL pattern 2 that is very tiny in size. The LDL pattern 1 cholesterol is GOOD CHOLESTEROL, NOT BAD ! ! ! When doctors do typical lab tests for LDL cholesterol, they simply do NOT separate the good and bad LDL forms and you get a TOTAL of the LDL and they lump it all together and call it bad. This is NOT GOOD SCIENCE and no way to determine your health in regard to cholesterol, but they get away with it and you ultimately pay the price for this. HDL cholesterol has a job to go around the body and collect the LDL cholesterol and return it to the liver for RECONJUGATION so it can be used again! ! So if LDL is bad, why would the body do this? Because the body makes about 85% of the cholesterol found in your body and if your diet is deficient in it, your body makes more to compensate for the deficiency! ! ! So, what makes the bad LDL tiny particles that can actually contribute to the problem? Bad OILS, like Vegetable oils (especially soybean, canola, cottonseed, and corn oils). These oils are oxidized (rancid) when you buy them. Oxygen oxidizes the extracts when they are made. So, the manufacturers put a deodorizer in the garbage to mask the stench so you won t notice. Also, fried foods, trans fats, hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils contribute to this problem. These oils make bad bile and bad LDL cholesterol. When you get high cholesterol readings, it simply means that your body has a lot of inflammation going on and your body is trying to reduce this inflammation by sending the necessary fatty acids to repair the inflamed tissues, like your arteries. Additional to the bad oils, there are three primary foods that make this bad LDL tiny particle guy that contributes to the plaque and that is: ALL GRAINS, ALL SUGARS, and CORNSTARCH. You mentioned carbohydrates and small LDL particles (pattern 2) are most sensitive to carbohydrate intake as opposed to fats. Cholesterol, being a form of alcohol dissolves in water and that is why it is so good in transporting the fatty acids for repairing tissue because the fatty acids attach to the cholesterol molecule and it is a major part of the healing process in the body. If you avoid ALL Grains, sugars, and cornstarch, you will see your LDL levels reduce dramatically in days. An ideal range for LDL is around 160 to 175 and an ideal range for your HDL cholesterol is around 50 or slightly higher. Drug companies started out telling everyone to keep their cholesterol levels in the 400 range. Then it went to 300 and now it s 200. Along with these recommendations, their drug sales skyrocketed and the sales curve rises according to lower those numbers. Stroke has now reached the #3 most deadly problem that is killing Americans today. When you reduce your cholesterol the body uses to repair tissue, your arteries become thinner and you become more susceptible to STROKE. This is why doctors are so concerned about your blood pressure. If you have high blood pressure, thin arteries, you are a good candidate for a stroke. Inflammation is the real issue and their is NO money in treating people nutritionally for the medical guys, so reducing your cholesterol and putting you on a cascading, declining slippery slope gives you MAKE BELIEVE HEALTH and on a drug program for life support and a diminished quality of life. There is a nanobacteria that can be found in cooked foods, especially processed foods, that does NOT show up on typical lab tests that attacks three primary body parts, the arteries around the heart, pancreas, and kidneys. This bacteria is free to enter the body when the stomach acid level is low and prevents the stomach from getting to a pH of 1.5 to 3.0 during digestion. Since we make less and less stomach acid as we age, this guy is generating LOTS OF INFLAMMATION in the body. When doctors prescribe antacids for reflux and acid indigestion, they promote this bacteria and lots of inflammation in the body. PCR lab tests will show this bacteria, but that test is expensive. The myth about saturated fats being bad for you and is being promoted by the incredibly ignorant medical industry because nutrition is not a money maker for them. Your brain is saturated fat and your heart runs on saturated fat for it s energy. Primitive man ate huge amounts of wild animals and wild fish that contained enormous amounts of saturated fats, but had NO cavities, and resistant to disease. When you eat too much protein, your body converts that protein into SATURATED FATS and stores it for use later. These low fat diets are simply DUMB. Saturated fats do NOT cause heart disease. In regard to your high blood pressure, one of the best things you can eat is Natto. This is a fermented soy product that contains Nattokynase and it will lower your blood pressure very well. If you eat soy, only eat fermented soy, not raw soy or things with soy in it. Soy that is NOT fermented, causes many problems in the body. In an indirect way, grains cause higher blood pressure because as I mentioned, it makes BAD LDL cholesterol pattern 2 that contributes to plaque build up in the arteries. When the arteries inside lumen decreases in size, your blood pressure will go up. Most of your calories should not come from carbs, but fats and proteins. Avoid the fats I mentioned and do the following: Make a mixture of three oils: 1/3 olive oil, 1/3 sesame seed oil, and 1/3 coconut oil. Use that mixture for all your cooking needs and then add balsamic vinegar to the oil mix for a great salad dressing. Throw out all those commercial salad dressings because they contain bad oils like soybean, canola, cottonseed, or corn that are contributing to the hardening of the arteries. good luck to you