MINNEAPOLIS — Sometimes things sound too good to be true, like a snack food that can aid heart health.
Now, thanks to a Twin Cities doctor, this cholesterol-lowering treat is a reality.
Dr. Elizabeth Klodas is a Twin Cities cardiologist focusing on the prevention of heart disease through changing what we eat. With that in mind, she created Step One Foods, a line of products high in fiber, Omega 3’s and antioxidants. “The ingredients are the things we know we should be eating, like flax and chia and oats and walnuts and almonds and fruits,” she said.
It's all designed to deliver the health benefits from foods that pharmaceuticals deliver from medication. Dr. Klodas noticed no matter how many medications she prescribed, few of her patients looked or felt any better. "I wasn't curing anybody," Klodas said. "I was just creating a never-ending revolving door of follow-up visits, and that's not right."
Dr. Klodas was dealing with the symptoms, but not addressing the causes of the number one killer in America: heart disease.
Underlying risk factors like high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity are driven in whole or in part by diet.
“We all eat every single day, multiple times a day. Why wouldn’t we leverage that activity to be health-promoting?”
From a small production facility in St. Louis Park, a line of mostly plant-based breakfasts, snack bars and smoothies was created to take the guesswork out of healthy eating for people who need to lower their cholesterol.
To make a difference, patients should ideally consume two servings of Step One products a day as a replacement for other foods in their diet. The Mayo Clinic and the University of Manitoba have put the foods through clinical trials.
“In our trial what we proved with just that tiny change, in 30 days you can see an average LDL or bad cholesterol reduction of 9%,” said Klodas.
Find more information about Step One Foods here.
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