Lower high cholesterol naturally
You've tried foods and diets for high cholesterol and maybe even pills, but you just can't lower high cholesterol for yourself. Do you give up now? No! There are a number of ways you can lower cholesterol without drugs, even when nothing else seems to have worked.
High cholesterol is caused when your diet or your genetic makeup causes your blood to have an overabundance of free cholesterol. Ideally, you should have a cholesterol number of 200 or below; if you have cholesterol of 240 or above, you are considered to be at high risk for atherosclerosis, hardening of the arteries. This disease leads to a number of other ailments, including heart disease, dementia, and death.
When you work to lower high cholesterol, you may hear references to "good" and "bad" cholesterol. This refers to LDL and HDL cholesterol. LDL is the "bad" version, leading to all the mentioned ill effects. HDL is "good" cholesterol, and helps keep your level of LDL low. When you look at your cholesterol number, pay attention to your LDL high cholesterol level; reducing high cholesterol overall does you no good if your LDL numbers are over 100.
It is possible to naturally lower high cholesterol through a combination of cardiovascular exercise and a healthy diet. Start by eating foods that lower cholesterol levels naturally: oatmeal and oat brans, tree nuts like walnuts and almonds (only a handful a day), and fish and other sources of omega-3 fatty acids. Reduce your fat intake overall as well, replacing as many "bad" sources of cholesterol like butter and peanuts with "good" ones, like plant sterol margarines and walnuts.
Exercise is also an effective method for lowering high cholesterol. Simple aerobic exercise, engaged in on a regular basis, should help to eliminate several points from your cholesterol levels. A daily half-hour brisk walk, either in your neighborhood or somewhere like a mall, will help lower high cholesterol for most people.
Only after all these interventions have not worked, or have not worked enough, should you look at medication . High cholesterol is generally manageable just by changing your bad diet and exercise habits. However, for some people, you will need drugs to lower high cholesterol. The most commonly prescribed set of drugs are statins. These drugs inhibit the processing of an enzyme in the liver that is necessary to process cholesterol; when this enzyme is blocked, the liver works to eliminate the bad LDL cholesterol from your blood, but not the good HDL. These drugs are very effective at lowering bad cholesterol, but do not work forever and do not work for everyone.
Even if statins do lower high cholesterol for you, this is not an excuse to stop doing the other things that lower your blood cholesterol. Frequently, your ability to eliminate cholesterol from your body decreases over time, and maintaining a diet that will lower blood cholesterol keeps your drugs working much longer. The diet you need to lower blood cholesterol is better for your overall health, anyway
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