What Cholesterol Has to Do With Alzheimer’s
Why brain health depends on blood flow — and what cholesterol really tells you about it.
When we first stepped in as our mom’s medical advocates, we learned she had high cholesterol and was already taking a statin.
That news stopped us cold. Her dad—our grandfather—had died of a stroke when she was young.
We couldn’t help but think: What if we miss something, and she suffers the same fate?
But even more surprising?
None of her doctors mentioned that high cholesterol could also be affecting her brain—or even speeding up the progression of her Alzheimer’s.
The Missing Link: Coordinated Care
Our mom is treated at the Penn Memory Center, one of the top programs in the world for dementia research, teaching, and care.
This team spends more than 40 hours a week studying and treating Alzheimer’s.
And yet, not one doctor ever said:
| “High LDL means blood, oxygen, and nutrients may not be reaching her brain as well as they should.”
That moment was eye-opening.
We realized something significant: coordinated care isn’t there yet.
Heart, metabolic, and brain health still live in separate silos.
Neurology looks at cognition.
Primary care (or cardiology) checks cholesterol.
Endocrinology looks at blood sugar.
But no one is looking at how all three work together.
So if you’re caring for someone with Alzheimer’s, you have to coordinate that care yourself.
Connecting the dots between these systems can make all the difference in slowing progression.
Cholesterol’s Real Job: Fuel Transport
We tend to think of cholesterol as bad—something to avoid.
But your brain actually depends on it.
Cholesterol acts like a delivery system for fat and nutrients throughout the body.
It’s part of every cell membrane, and your brain needs it to make new connections—literally to form and store memories.
So, the goal isn’t to eliminate cholesterol.
It’s to keep it moving freely through clear, flexible blood vessels—especially those tiny ones feeding memory centers in the brain.
When too much LDL cholesterol (the “bad” kind) or triglycerides circulate, they start sticking to artery walls. Over time, that sticky buildup narrows the vessels.
Narrowed vessels mean less blood flow, less oxygen, and fewer nutrients reaching the brain.
And when the brain isn’t well-fed, memory and cognition suffer.
What Our Mom’s Numbers Taught Us
From 2019 to 2022, we did everything right—or so we thought.
We cooked healthy meals, she exercised regularly, stayed consistent with her medicine, and watched her dose keep creeping up while her total cholesterol barely budged.
By 2022, her doctor had raised the statin again, but the results didn’t make sense.
We realized we didn’t actually know how to read the cholesterol numbers.
In early 2023, we stopped the medication for a reset.
Her total cholesterol soared to 317, but we finally took the time to understand why.
Our mom wasn’t eating “wrong”—she was eating imbalanced.
Too much sugar hiding in “healthy” foods, and not enough fiber to sweep it out.
That combo fuels insulin resistance—and when the body can’t move sugar efficiently, it stores it as fat in the blood.
And that “blood fat”? You see it on her lab as triglycerides.
We later discovered she was insulin-resistant—and that her body needed more fiber than we were giving her.
High triglycerides were the clue.
The Fiber Fix
Once we understood what the numbers meant, we made small but powerful swaps:
- Grapes → 🍏 Apples and pears (higher in fiber, lower in sugar)
- Corn → 🥦 Broccoli or leafy greens
- Added a scoop of Metamucil to dinner
Within four months, her cholesterol dropped more than 125 points—without changing her joy in food or her daily rhythm.
Her new numbers told the story:
- Total cholesterol: 317 → 191
- Triglycerides: 206 → 106
- LDL: 217 → 106
- HDL: 59 → 85
It was a stunning turnaround—driven mainly through fiber.
Fiber binds to cholesterol in the digestive tract and helps carry it out of the body before it can cause buildup.
It also steadies blood sugar, reducing the insulin resistance that drives high triglycerides.
Movement Matters (Especially After Meals)
Our mom also kept up her routine—walking 3 to 5 times per week for 30 minutes, usually after breakfast.
That “after-meal” timing was key.
Even a 10–15 minute walk after eating helps lower triglycerides and improve insulin sensitivity, which directly supports brain blood flow.
Together, fiber and movement did what medicine couldn’t do alone.
We’re Doing Our Part So the Medicine Can Do Its Part
For our mom, we did bring the statin back — at a much lower dose — because her goal LDL is 70, given her Alzheimer’s and stroke risk.
And this time, it’s working better, because her lifestyle changes were finally doing their part too.
And here’s what clicked for us:
Medicine and lifestyle don’t compete — they complete each other.
Fiber, movement, and cutting back on added sugar handle things prescriptions can’t.
Medication handles the things lifestyle alone can’t.
When we do our part, the medicine has a better chance of doing its part.
And that balance is what keeps blood, oxygen, and nutrients moving where they’re needed most — straight to the brain.
Coordinating Care for Your Alzie
If your loved one is living with Alzheimer’s, chances are they have cholesterol issues too.
But that doesn’t automatically mean it’s “just a heart thing.”
When you look at their lab results, think about blood flow, not just numbers.
Here’s a simple way to start the conversation:
| “Can we go over these cholesterol numbers together?
I’d like to understand what they say about blood flow to the brain.”
You don’t have to be a doctor to ask thoughtful questions.
You just have to connect the dots that others haven’t—yet.
