Lowering Your Cholesterol

Lowering Your Cholesterol

In order to avoid complicated health problems like heart disease, lowering your cholesterol is very important. There are a few behaviors that can increase your cholesterol to unhealthy levels. A person’s weight is not only a major risk factor for causing heart disease on its own, but being overweight makes your cholesterol increase and raises your blood pressure. By losing weight you can reduce your bad cholesterol and total cholesterol levels, as well as raise your good cholesterol and lowering your blood pressure. Plus, things like exercise, age, and gender also play an important part in whether you are at risk for having high cholesterol. Also, your genes play a role in how much cholesterol your body produces. High cholesterol is genetic and passed on through the generations. Certain diets can also lower your cholesterol level.

The best way to control your cholesterol is to stick to a low-cholesterol diet. By cutting the bad cholesterol that you eat by ten to twenty percent, you will improve your heart health. Include foods that are rich in healthy fats like vegetable oils and fish. You should also avoid foods that are high in saturated fats and trans fats. One easy way to change your diet to a low-cholesterol diet is to replace the butter, trans fat margarines and polyunsaturated oils that you might typically use with canola oil, olive oil, or plant sterol spreads. Use white wine vinegar to keep your pan moist while cooking instead of butter. It does not change the taste of the food and it is low in cholesterol. You can also use a cholesterol-free egg substitute instead of whole eggs.

As important as it is to change your diet to increase your health, it is equally as important to change your diet in the proper way. Some people are looking to change their diet to lose weight but are not making changes in their diet in the right way. Actually, low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets can raise your cholesterol levels. Cholesterol is so important to the human body that your body has a backup plan in case your cholesterol levels were to become too low such as when a person were crash dieting or starving themselves. What happens is that your liver will start to produce cholesterol to guarantee your body a baseline level instead of actually lowering your cholesterol.

By eating a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet, high levels of insulin are introduced and trigger the body to siphon off excess blood sugar into the liver to make cholesterol and triglycerides (which are used for energy and fat storage). Rather then staying away from anything that has cholesterol in it, it is important to continue to eat foods that contain good cholesterol. Your liver only makes 75% of the cholesterol that you need. The rest of the cholesterol you need comes from the things that you eat and vegetables, fish and fruits are good for lowering your cholesterol.

If you decrease the amount of cholesterol that you are eating too much and make up those calories in carbohydrates and sugar, your metabolism goes into famine mode and your liver overproduces cholesterol to make up the difference and bring the levels back up. This over production of cholesterol will not stop until you start eating cholesterol again. A low-cholesterol, high-carbohydrate diet can actually lead to higher cholesterol levels and be detrimental to your overall health.  Lowering your cholesterol will help your overall health and add years to your life.

Lowering Your Cholesterol Levels With Diet

Lowering your cholesterol by  improving your diet.

Despite the fact that many people believe that the trend towards lowering cholesterol in diets is brought on by the reality that the young generation is dieting themselves to death; it isn’t so. Limiting the body’s cholesterol levels just isn’t only for appearance’s purposes but also for ones well being. Cholesterol levels in the body, when at a particular level, can trigger a host of body complications and disease which can even eventually cause death.

Challenges like hypertension, heart illness, and diabetes come to mind. This really is especially telling with people that are older or in their middle ages because of the slowing down of the bodily processes particularly the digestive system. Plus the body’s capacity to convert fats to energy is lessened. This is maybe why most older persons, especially those that have weight troubles, are becoming asked by their physicians to lessen their cholesterol intake.

What’s cholesterol?

Folks have been talking about cholesterol but do they know what it is and how it affects the body. As a result of news about rising cases of heart problems inside the USA, cholesterol has become an overnight antagonist. Everyone thinks that cholesterol is bad.

Really, not all cholesterol is bad for the body. The fact is, our bodies need cholesterol to create bile salts. It is also a significant ingredient in sustaining hormonal balance as well as producing Vitamin D. Trouble is caused when the levels are so high that the cholesterol clogs the arteries, making it hard for the heart to pump blood through the body.

You will discover two kinds of cholesterol, the good as well as the bad. The LDL, is the bad type and it adheres to the arterial walls, forming plaques that eventually clog the passageway. Saturated fats as well as trans fats are sources of this kind of cholesterol. This is found in pre-packed foods like potato snacks and canned goods.

HDL or good cholesterol, however, can lower the levels of LDL cholesterol. This is since the HDL helps transport the LDL cholesterol from the arterial walls back to the liver where it can be excreted out. Good sources of HDL cholesterol are found in nuts and in seafood.

People who need to lower their LDL levels are also advised to eat many fruits because of the fiber that this produces for the body. Oats, cereals, and legumes are also wonderful sources of fibers that may a combat the rise of LDL cholesterol, eventually decreasing the threat of heart disease.

Factors that have an effect on lowering your cholesterol levels

Contrary to well-known opinion, it’s not just the diet plan that needs to be taken into consideration when dealing with high cholesterol levels. You can find essentially a great deal of aspects that affect the condition. One of these may be the age as well as the gender. Older folks are affected more by increased levels of cholesterol as a result of their bodies’ slowing processes. A further factor could be the degree of physical activity. Workouts can help in lowering LDL cholesterol. Also, it is helpful in strengthening the body and in toning the muscles.

Lowering your cholesterol levels summary

From what was mentioned above, it seems relatively easy to lower the body’s cholesterol levels… if a person has the discipline to do so. Just eat suitable foods and do some physical exercise often, steer clear of canned and pre-packed foods and you can be on your way to lower cholesterol levels.

How to Reduce Cholesterol with Drugs

How to Reduce Cholesterol with Drugs

High cholesterol can be treated with prescription drugs and many of the drugs work as advertised. However, be aware that most of the drugs can have severe side effects. Your doctor will prescribe a cholesterol lowering drug or a combination of several drugs. Some drugs may perform better than others depending on a patients specific condition and analysis.

There are 3 basic categories of cholesterol lowering drugs. The first category is bile acid binding resins. The liver is very important in the use of cholesterol to manufacture bile acids. Bile acids help the body properly digest food and the main drug in this category, Colestid, uses the liver to indirectly lower your cholesterol by causing the liver to produce more bile acids which uses more cholesterol, thus lowering the amount of cholesterol in your bloodstream. Side effects that have been reported by colestid users include constipation, gas and heartburn.

The second category is statins. Statins block a protein your liver uses to make cholesterol. This causes the liver to make less cholesterol and take more from the bloodstream. Statins have also been proven to remove cholesterol and plaque build up on your artery walls, thus actually reducing coronary heart disease. Some of the most common statins are Lipitor, Pravachol, Zocor and Crestor. These statin prescriptions are also available in generic form at a much lower price. Although statins work well, they also have serious side effects. Liver damage is one key side effect. For this reason, your doctor will test your your liver every six months to make sure it is functioning properly. If it is not, your prescription will be halted or altered until you return to normal liver function. Another side effect is myopathy, or muscle damage. This can turn into a fatal condition and if your muscles develop pains, weakness or become tender, report this to your doctor quickly.

Taking cholesterol lowering medications with other medications can also cause side effects. Be sure your doctor knows all of your medications, so he can make a proper diagnosis. Drinking grapefruit juice with statins can also cause problems. Grapefruit juice can alter the metabolism of the statin drugs and cause high blood pressure. other common side effects are depression, fatigue, mental disfuction, weight change, dizziness, bleeding, upset stomach, nausea, skin irritation and change in eyesight.

The third category of  how to reduce cholesterol with drugs  is absorption inhibitors. The most popular of these drugs is Zetia and it limits the amount of cholesterol absorbed into the small intestine where cholesterol enters the bloodstream. Absorption inhibitors can also be used in conjuction with statins to control cholesterol levels. Side effects include back and joint pain, diarrhea, and even sinus problems.

How to reduce cholesterol with drugs is helpful but there are also  potential negative side effects. Be sure your doctor is aware of all of your medical problems and medications before using any of the prescription drugs on the market. As we have seen, there are many lawsuits over the side effects caused by these drugs so be careful and monitor your body’s reaction to these drugs.