High cholesterol? Here's a pill. High blood pressure? Here are two pills. High blood sugar? Here are two pills and an injection. This is what many doctors routinely do without ever addressing why the cholesterol, blood pressure or blood sugar is abnormal in the first place.

Axar.az reports that two decades ago, the National Institutes of Health cholesterol guidelines mandated that changing diet should be tried for three months as the first step in treating high cholesterol, before putting anyone on drugs. But today, many of my peers expressed skepticism that a food-based solution could work.

A solution is to give physicians, insurers and especially patients an alternative food-based option for cholesterol-lowering that could compete with drugs on every level. These foods taste great and are formulated using only health-promoting ingredients. They are dosed and measured and as easy to prescribe and use as medications. Most important, they yield clinically meaningful cholesterol reductions as confirmed by a clinical trial.

The result was that 20%, 30%, even close to 40% cholesterol reductions were found in many individuals in just 30 days. This data was submitted at an American Heart Association meeting and will be submitted for publication. These medication-level cholesterol responses were obtained with food, without the need for dietary overhauls or exercise routines. They don't just represent an option for the estimated 20 million Americans who are statin intolerant and have no other solutions but for millions more who need to lower their cholesterol but don't need stains.

As with medications, not everyone's cholesterol will respond equally to a food intervention. Some people should be on statins even if their cholesterol is perfect. But given that it takes only a month of dietary change to determine whether you're a food responder, doesn't it make sense to give people the chance to at least try a validated food intervention before assigning them to a lifetime of pills? Especially since food doesn't have any side effects, just side benefits such as lower blood pressure, better blood sugar control, weight loss and feeling better.

Food is the comprehensive solution to a complex problem.