Decreasing a High Level of Cholesterol
Generally patients find out about the fact that they have a high level of cholesterol in the blood during the regular blood tests they take. Before prescribing them a treatment based on pills most doctors prefer to try other methods first. They recommend the patient to lose some weigh and to keep a diet for a while. Loosing weight is important in the process of reducing the level of cholesterol and so exercising and other weight loss resources should be considered. Also, the patients should be careful what they eat, especially what amount of fat they digest.
Specialists recommend the patients to make sure the diet contains less that 30% fats. It is important to be careful what type of fats patients eat. There are three types of fats: saturate, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. Those foods that contain saturate fats are dangerous for the patient because they increase the level of cholesterol in the blood and so they should be eaten in small amounts and even avoided. These dangerous aliments are: fatty meats, butter, cheese, cream, and processed foods.
The pre-processed foods and takeaway ones are harmful because they get “bad” during their processing. These foods do not contain a label where it is written the substances they contain but you can pay attention to the ingredients producers used. If you see hydrogenated fat or oil you can be sure that they are unhealthy and should reduce consuming them as much as possible.
The monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are good for the organism as they reduce the level of cholesterol in the blood. These precious aliments are: vegetable oils, soya oil, margarines, seeds, olive oil, avocado and nuts. The most important thing is to avoid frying the food but if this is necessary try to do that in olive oil and not in butter.
Besides concentrating about eliminating fats from your diet, you should make sure you eat oats, barley, pulses and fruits because they contain soluble fiber which is useful in lowering the cholesterol level and are low in fat too.
Try to eat daily at least 25 grams of soya protein because it has been proven to be healthy. It seems that it lowers efficiently the level of cholesterol by lowering both the low density lipoproteins and the total cholesterol. You can get 25 grams of soya by drinking three glasses of soya milk, but try to avoid those varieties which contain sweet. Of course, soya can also be found in other products like special yoghurt, creams and soya deserts but you must pay attention to the calories these products contain.
For greater resources on cholesterol please review www.cholesterol-info-guide.com/low-cholesterol-food.htm or www.cholesterol-info-guide.com/high-cholesterol.htm
Diabetes, Blood Pressure And Bad Cholesterol Cause Heart Ailment
Diseases are best fought when those in the high-risk bracket understand as to what are the risk factors involved. It is true that you cannot avoid the genetic factor but you can still keep the situation in your control by making a few changes in your current approach to life and living.
Bad Cholesterol is supposed to be a major culprit in case of heart diseases. It is a type of a lipid, a soft, fat-like substance. Atherosclerotic plaque, which can cause blockage of blood flow in the arteries and can also cause heart attack, can develop due to excess of cholesterol. Popular by the name of 'Bad' cholesterol, LDL cholesterol gets deposited on the walls of arteries and is transported to different sites throughout the body where new hormones are developed and cell membranes are repaired. On the other hand the 'Good' cholesterol called HDL cholesterol, carries cholesterol to the liver where the alteration process is done, after which it is removed from the body.
According to the physicians, the blood pressure level of a normal person is less than 130 mm Hg for systolic blood pressure and less than 85 mm Hg for diastolic blood pressure. Every individual should get his blood pressure checked at least once in every two years so as to know the status, and if any increase is found, the treatment should be started forthwith. If your blood pressure level is little higher than normal then get it checked once a year, and take good care if it is very high and then get multiple measurements to check out whether it remains that high all the time or fluctuates. Immediate medical attention is a must in such cases.
If you are suffering from diabetes, which is a chronic disease of insulin deficiency or resistance, then you are more prone to heart disease. On the other hand if you are suffering from type 2 diabetes then you can easily avoid it by losing your weight either through exercise or by taking balanced nutrition.
If you smoke, stop smoking immediately because it affects your lungs very badly, and not just heart diseases, it may also lead to many other problems.
A daily 30 minutes physical exercise or fast walking can keep you away from heart diseases and can also be helpful in controlling obesity.
Minimize your daily alcohol intake to three ounces or less. It would definitely be a healthy step. Include fresh fruits and vegetables, sufficient amount of potassium, calcium and magnesium in your daily diet. Avoid saturated fats and cholesterol to keep your heart healthy. Just a little care and a little awareness is all it takes to keep heart diseases at bay.
How to Reduce Cholesterol the Natural Way
Having a high cholesterol level has become a very serious problem for many people today. This has been credited to a majority of the population getting accustomed to a diet rich in fats, bad habits such as smoking and leading a sedentary lifestyle. And because of high cholesterol levels, more and more people are finding themselves at an increased risk of developing coronary heart disease as well as stroke and heart attack.
Heart disease is the number one cause of death for most people in the developed countries around the world. Having a high level of blood cholesterol has been linked to the increase of the incidence of heart disease and has become a grave cause of concern.
The only good news to this fact is that developing heart disease is highly preventable. All it takes is for one to be able to follow a healthier lifestyle. The path to such a lifestyle is trying to lower one's cholesterol level. Although there are already several drugs available that will help an individual reduce body cholesterol levels, this is usually reserved for more high risk patients in need of drastic decreases in their cholesterol levels. There are also natural ways readily available for anyone looking forward to lowering their own cholesterol to normal and healthy levels.
One of the natural ways of lowering cholesterol levels is through diet. Following a low cholesterol diet day in and day out can be very effective in trying to control and maintain a normal cholesterol level. This would mean eating low cholesterol foods such as soy products, vegetables and fruits.
High fiber foods are also known to help in the fight to lower cholesterol. Regular exercise is also a good habit to develop if you are really intent in trying to lower your cholesterol levels. Exercise helps in increasing HDL or "good" cholesterol in the body as well as strengthens your heart muscle, helps keep your blood pressure at normal and even helps you in shedding of those excess pounds.
There are also several natural supplements that will be able to help you lower your cholesterol levels. Taking B-complex vitamins, specifically Niacin, has been known to help lower blood cholesterol in the body. supplements fortified with Lecithin can also help in lowering your cholesterol as it enables excess fat and cholesterol to be dispersed in the water instead of building up in the arteries.
There are other natural ways of lowering cholesterol levels available today. All it will take is some research and talking to your doctor about how to effectively follow a lifestyle that will enable you to lower cholesterol the natural way.
What is Cholesterol?
Cholesterol has become one of the biggest health concerns for industrial and post-industrial nations in today's world.
You can't seem to go a single day without seeing some ad or article warning of cholesterol's potential to damage the circulatory system. However, cholesterol as a whole is rarely clearly defined.
Cholesterol is a lipid, which basically means that it's form of fat, and it is necessary to every living thing on our planet.
Even plants have trace amounts of cholesterol contained in cell membranes.
Cholesterol is necessary to the formation of cellular membranes and many hormones the body needs to run properly.
Because it is so widely used to build cells, pregnant women, breastfeeding women, and growing children all need to ingest a decent amount of cholesterol every day.
However, most cholesterol is synthesized by the body from other fats we take in, and any balanced, healthy diet contains more than enough for any human being.
Any living body, from a cell to a full-grown human, is a process in continual motion. As a part of that process, cholesterol must be kept in balance.
Enough must be ingested and synthesized to keep bodily functions going, and enough must be excreted from the body to keep from growing "plaques" of cholesterol on the inside of blood vessels.
Industrial and post-industrial cultures usually have a problem with keeping cholesterol levels from growing too high, rather than suffering from an insufficient amount.
Because cholesterol is synthesized within the body, dietary changes may not be enough to keep cholesterol levels under control, which is why cholesterol-lowering medications can be a viable therapy for some people.
If a given person's system naturally produces high levels of cholesterol no matter how little cholesterol he or she eats, medication helps curtail the over-production.
However, cholesterol medication should never be used to justify a poor diet or unhealthy lifestyle.
Many people think of their cholesterol in terms of HDL and LDL cholesterol. While useful as a shortcut, this is actually inaccurate.
Both HDL and LDL are forms of lipoproteins.
In other words, they are systems of protein chains that carry cholesterol along with them. Cholesterol does not dissolve in blood, so these lipoprotein "baskets" are necessary to convey cholesterol through the bloodstream.
Without HDL and LDL, cholesterol would quickly clump up in any given blood vessel, block it off and create massive systemic problems.
In speaking of cholesterol, as with anything else in the human body, it's a balancing game.
The body is a marvel of engineering and produces nothing unnecessary to life.
Cholesterol is not the enemy, it does not deserve the level of stress and fear that it's been stamped with, it's a fat molecule.
An overdose of cholesterol can kill just as surely as an overdose of oxygen or water.
However, if you have a problem with high cholesterol levels, applied education is the best weapon you have, so research everything, decide on the therapy best for you, and then hopefully enjoy your long life!
Cholesterol… Not Bad After All
Do you know that total amount fat and cholesterol in the diet whether high or low, has no real link to heart diseases as widely believed? Rather it is the type of fat in diet that matters.
There are bad fats that increase risk to certain diseases and good fats that lower this risk. Cholesterol in food is not exactly a health problem. Infact dietary cholesterol is not exactly linked to heart disease.
Heart disease may be caused by high blood cholesterol i.e. the cholesterol circulating in your blood. Surprisingly, amount of diet cholesterol is not linked to blood cholesterol levels. The biggest influence on blood cholesterol level is the mix of types of fats in the diet. That is the mix of saturated, unsaturated and trans fats.
Cholesterol is a wax like substance made by the liver. It falls in the family of nutrients called lipids. It is used to construct and in the functioning of cell membranes and other organelles. Once synthesized by the liver, it is linked to proteins called lipoproteins which are then released into the blood stream to supply all the body cells with cholesterol.
Blood Cholesterol:
Too much cholesterol in the blood can result to it building inside arteries. These deposits are called plaque. They can actually narrow arteries enough to slow or block blood flow. This condition is called atherosclerosis. This unfortunately occurs in arteries close to the heart. Plaque at times raptures causing blood clots that can lead to a heart attack, stroke or sudden death.
The good news is that cholesterol build up can be slowed, stopped and even possibly reversed.
In the cholesterol transport in blood, low density lipoproteins i.e. LDL carry cholesterol from liver into the blood to supply the body so when LDL is in excess, it can be deposited on arteries. Hence LDL cholesterol is called bad cholesterol.
On the other hand high density lipoproteins i.e. HDL carry cholesterol from the blood back to the liver which processes cholesterol for elimination from the body. So, high HDL reduces the chance of excess cholesterol in the blood being deposited on arteries.
Therefore HDL is called the good cholesterol.
This then means a higher level LDL and lower levels of HDL shows a high risk of heart disease. An important determinant of blood cholesterol is specific fats in diet. Research shows that there are some types of fats that are clearly good for blood cholesterol and others that are bad. Though dietary cholesterol does not affect, blood cholesterol as badly as it is widely believed.
Fat And Cholesterol
For example, mono-saturated fats e.g. olive oil, canola oil, peanut oil, cashew nuts, almond, peanuts and generally most nuts and avocados. All these lower the LDL and raise the HDL meaning they are good sources of fat.
Poly unsaturated fats e.g. corn, safflower, cotton seed oil, fish. These lower LDL and also raise HDL. These are also excellent sources of fat.
Saturated fat e.g. found in whole milk, butter, cheese, ice-cream, red meat, chocolate, coconut, coconut milk and coconut oil all raise both LDL and HDL. Not really good sources as they raise both the good and bad cholesterol.
Trans-Fats which consist of mainly margarines, vegetable shortenings, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, deep fried chips, many fast foods, as well as most commercially baked foods. All these raise LDL meaning it is the worst source of fats. And funnily probably the most consumed.
Formally, eggs demonized for high cholesterol level are now proving scientifically that they are not directly linked to increase in heart disease in healthy individuals. Its moderate use as food is encouraged. It further contains extra nutrients e.g. proteins, vitamin B12 and vitamin D.
But diabetic and high cholesterol individuals should proceed with caution. Diabetics can have 2 – 3 eggs a week, while high cholesterol individuals should avoid the egg yolk due to its high cholesterol.
The poorer sources of fat i.e. saturated fats are mainly found in animal based foods. So it is advisable to eat the leanest form of beef more often than the fatty cuts. Trans fats are produced by heating liquid vegetable oil in pressure of hydrogen i.e. hydrogenation. The more hydrogenated the harder it is at room temperature. These trans-fats are used in many snacks, processed foods.
The better sources of fat and consequently those that lower blood cholesterol are mostly plant based.
So, what really matters more in your diet or nutrition is not quantity of fat but rather the type. Infact, there is evidence that high intake of unsaturated fats lower risk of heart attack. Fish an important source of the poly-saturated fat known as omega-3 has received much attention in lowering risk of heart disease.
This is so much so that the American Heart Association currently recommends that everyone should eat at least two servings of fish a week. Mono-saturated fats have also been related to reduced cancer.
There is also a misconception that the more fat you eat the more weight you gain, so completely cut down on fat. As much as the first statement is true to some extent, the most prudent thing to do to cut weight is take in fewer calories than you use in a day. This you do by reducing your daily portion without eliminating any nutrient and increasing your exercising.
But for those of you who have tried these two, you now know diets and exercises alone are not enough for permanent weight loss. Indeed they are only two of the Top 4 Reasons you fail in losing weight.
Natural Alternatives to Cholesterol-lowering Drugs
More and more people these days are confronted with cholesterol problems, being at risk of developing heart affections, atherosclerosis, and various other serious conditions linked with abnormal blood cholesterol values. While in some cases high cholesterol problems are the consequence of genetically inherited or acquired physiological dysfunctions, they are most commonly linked with sedentary lifestyle and inappropriate dietary choices. Despite the fact that cholesterol levels can be kept in check naturally, without the aid of prescription drugs, most people still rely on medications in order to correct their cholesterol problems.
Unless you have dangerously high blood cholesterol values, or your cholesterol problems are the result of other underlying conditions, the best thing to do is say no to medications. Although there is a wide variety of cholesterol-lowering drugs available on the market, and such medications are commonly prescribed in present, it is very important to be aware of the fact that such medications are neither 100 percent effective, nor entirely safe, generating pronounced side-effects on long-term use.
Among the abundance of cholesterol-lowering drugs available in present, the most commonly prescribed medications are statins. Considered to be the best means of correcting cholesterol problems in the past, the effectiveness of such medications is nowadays questionable. Recent medical studies and experiments have revealed that statins generate differentiated results, their effects varying from a person to another. While they are effective in lowering cholesterol among some categories of patients, statins fail to produce substantial benefic results among other categories of patients. Researchers have proved that the efficiency of statins is strongly influenced by factors such as age, gender and even racial provenience, factors that render these medications inappropriate for generalized use.
In addition to their inconstancy in preventing and reducing high cholesterol levels, statins are also considered to be very unsafe, producing various side effects, ranging from mild to serious. Thus, it is best to avoid using such medications when possible and try reversing the effects of high blood cholesterol naturally, by following proper food regimens and making lifestyle improvements. Considering the fact that statins have proved to be by far less effective than they were thought to be, an appropriate diet isn't only a safer alternative to medications, but it can also produce better results than such prescription drugs.
The three major things you should account for when you want to lower blood cholesterol levels without the aid of medications are:
1) Taking on a more physically active lifestyle. A good level of physical activity has a major positive impact on correcting cholesterol values, reversing the undesirable effects of high blood cholesterol and maintaining cholesterol levels in check. If you simply don't have the time to practice a certain sport or take part in more demanding physical activities, around 30 minutes of gymnastics or jogging per day are sufficient for keeping cholesterol levels in check.
2) Reducing the intake of foods that are rich in cholesterol and saturated fats. By replacing fast food and processed food products with healthy, home-cooked foods, you will be able to rapidly lower your cholesterol levels and improve your overall health.
3) Introducing more soluble fiber-rich foods in your daily diet. A diet rich in natural fibers is very effective in lowering cholesterol, as vegetal fibers help eliminate excess cholesterol from the body.
Follow these steps and you should be able to maintain healthy cholesterol levels without the aid of cholesterol-lowering medications. When it comes to lowering cholesterol, these natural alternatives are a lot safer and sometimes even more effective than statins and other specific medications.
If you want to find great information about many cholesterol subjects like low cholesterol food, low cholesterol food or many more please visit us at www.cholesterol-info-guide.com/
