Archive for the 'Cholesterol' Category

Cholesterol Lower Foods Help You Avoid Heart Disease

If you have high cholesterol you are not alone. With increasing regularity more and more people are finding themselves falling victim to this dangerous condition. It has been found that those with raised cholesterol levels are at an increased risk of heart disease and stroke.

To combat this problem a combination of healthy diet with cholesterol lower foods and exercise works for the vast majority of people but it is important to follow the instructions of your doctor, who may prescribe medication for those with dangerously high cholesterol levels.

The good news is that high cholesterol is controllable and here are ten proven ways to get high levels back under control.

1. Eat a sandwich. But make sure to build it on whole wheat bread or in a pita and hold the mayo. Lean turkey or chicken breast is the meat of choice. Bologna, salami, and many other processed lunch meats need to be avoided as they are high in fat and cholesterol.

2. Omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in salmon and flax seed, have been shown to help reduce cholesterol levels. You can also buy these in supplement form.

3. Trans fats need to be avoided as much as possible. These types of fats are notorious for raising bad LDL cholesterol levels while lowering good HDL levels. Unfortunately many foods contain Trans fats so it is important to read food labels. Avoiding margarine, shortening, and most processed foods that contain partially hydrogenated soybean oil will help limit exposure to these fats.

4. Nuts are a good source of healthy fats. Walnuts, macadamia nuts, cashews, and pecans are all healthy snack choices. If you like peanut butter stick to the natural kind as the normal kinds contain trans fats.

5. Eat high fiber foods. These include whole wheat breads, oatmeal, fruits, vegetables, beans, and high fiber cereals. Many high fiber products come in packaging that says “May help lower cholesterol”.

6. Cut back on deserts and sugary snacks. Healthier choices include angel food cake, graham crackers, Jell-O, and fat free yogurt.

7. Your barbecue grill is a great way to cook. Lean cuts of meat and burgers cooked on the grill not only tastes great but much of the fat and grease falls between the grates.

8. Check your salad dressing ingredients. Many contain high amounts of trans fats and cholesterol. Olive oil with vinegar and lemon is a good substitute for the creamy cholesterol increasing varieties sold in most grocery stores.

9. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables. They contain no cholesterol and are full of vitamins, minerals, fiber and antioxidants.

10. It is best to avoid fast foods and fried foods of any type. Deep fried foods are high in Trans fats and are a known to raise cholesterol levels rather easily.

By following these guidelines, eating cholesterol lower foods, and adding in some exercise you will soon see your high cholesterol drop back to more normal levels.

How to Design a Lower Cholesterol Diet

Eating is one of the things that can affect your cholesterol level a great deal. If you have too high cholesterol, the foods you eat can be one of the things you can control to most effectively and quickly lower your cholesterol. In fact, if you have elevated levels of high cholesterol, a healthy diet is the one thing that you must absolutely do in order to ensure heart health.

Adapting to a Cholesterol Friendly Diet

Once your doctor has confirmed that you have high cholesterol, you can take steps to regain your health by following a low cholesterol and low fat diet. Being true to such a healthful diet will ensure that you can reduce total cholesterol levels by as much as 15 percent. As an added benefit, this sort of diet will also make you feel generally healthier and more energetic as well.

You will benefit further with a regular exercise schedule and this will raise your “good” HDL levels for a total package of healthy living. Do this and within as short as 30 days you will experience a renewed sense of energy and vitality. The effects over all will be immediate.

Following a low cholesterol and low fat diet necessitates that you must do the following:

Get less than 7% of your day’s total calories from saturated fat. Your doctor may recommend less.

Receive 25-35% or less of your day’s total calories from fat. Your doctor may recommend less.

Consume less than 200 milligrams of dietary cholesterol each day, or follow the limits for dietary cholesterol that your doctor sets for you.

Limit your sodium intake to 2400 milligrams a day. Sea salt is a better option, but reducing your intake of all salts is the better choice.

You should be resolved to eat only enough calories to improve your healthy weight and reduce your blood cholesterol level.

Refuse foods made with harmful trans fats such as margarine, salad dressing and sauces.

Enjoy foods high in soluble fiber. These foods include:

Oats, rye, and barley

Fruits (especially try oranges and pears)

Vegetables (especially brussel sprouts and carrots)

Dried peas and beans

Avoid the Following Foods for Best Health:

High cholesterol foods can increase your level of blood cholesterol. High cholesterol foods include:

Organ meats (this includes liver, which may be eaten in small quantities)

Egg yolks

Full fat dairy products

Fried and processed foods are often high in fat and salt, which can wreak havoc on your heart health. Limit and eat only in moderation if at all:

Highly processed foods, and especially processed meats such as deli meats, sausages, hot dogs, bologna, salami and fatty red meats

All foods that are fried, especially deep fried foods

You will produce meals that have lower saturated fats when you try the following methods of food preparation:

Bake

Broil

Microwave

Poach

Steam

Grill

Roast (only if you remove fats that are melted in the process)

Lightly stir-fry or saute using low-fat and low-salt broth

Selecting your Foods

Enjoy a wide variety of foods regularly, including select cuts of meat, poultry, fish, dry beans, eggs and nuts each week.

You can further keep your blood cholesterol levels low by doing the following:

Choose chicken and turkey that has the skin removed. You can keep the skin on to seal in the juices so long as you remove the skin before eating.

When selecting meat, choose leaner cuts, white meat, and cuts that have less white “marbleized” texture. The white “marble” is fat that can increase your cholesterol.

Select fish such as cod that has less saturated fat than even chicken or other meats.

Even the leanest cuts of meat, chicken, fish, and shellfish have saturated fat and cholesterol so limit your daily intake to 6 ounces or less.

Remember: You can increase soluble fiber if LDL is not lowered enough from reducing saturated fat and cholesterol.

These factors can help you lower the level of cholesterol that is part of your normal food intake.

Not all Cholesterol Lowering Drugs are the Same

In January of 2008 some unsettling news has come from the FDA about the risks of the cholesterol lowering medication Vytorin (a combination of Zetia (Ezetimibe) and the statin drug Zocor (simvastatin)). Data from the Enhance trial that was not previously revealed by the manufacturer, Merck/Schering-Plough, showed that the combination drug did not reduce atherosclerotic plaque any better than the generic statin drug, simvastatin, when given alone. In fact, if anything Vytorin seemed to make atherosclerotic plaque worse, although it had a greater effect on lowering cholesterol. Vytorin has also been associated with an alarming increase in risk of liver damage. In addition, the Zetia that is in Vytorin has never been shown to reduce the risk of heart attacks or strokes. And Vytorin, at $2.84 a pop, as well as Zetia ($2.63) costs a heck-of-a-lot more than simvastatin, which is less than a dollar per pill.

Doctors use cholesterol lowering drugs to get cholesterol down to normal levels. However just because a drug lowers cholesterol levels doesn’t mean it will do what patients care about most, that is save your life, or even reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

The most commonly prescribed drugs to lower cholesterol, the statins, include Lipitor, Zocor, Crestor, Mevacor, and Pravachol. Statins lower LDL cholesterol by blocking an enzyme that churns out LDL cholesterol in the liver, called HMG CoEnzymeA reductase. Thirteen million prescriptions are written for statins every year. Ezetimibe (Zetia) is a drug that blocks absorption of LDL cholesterol by the small intestine, thus lowering LDL cholesterol levels in the blood. Zetia acts on cells lining the small intestine to interfere with their uptake of cholesterol. If we followed the recommendations of the experts, cholesterol lowering drugs would be given to every American with an LDL of greater than 130 mg/dL over age 45. Since half of Americans over age 35 have an LDL greater than 130 that would mean that almost half of all Americans or 100 million people should, theoretically, be taking statins. Since a year of statins costs up to $3000, that would cost $300 billion a year. Comparing national guidelines for who should take a statin across different countries, the guidelines which called for the most liberal use of statins (you guessed it, the U.S.) which called for 25% of the population to be on statins, saved no more lives than the guidelines for one of the most restrictive countries, New Zealand, which would treat 13% of the population.

For healthy males without a history of heart disease and without risk factors for heart disease (smoking, hypertension, family history of heart disease, familial hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, obesity and diabetes), there isn’t any evidence that cholesterol lowering drugs are helpful in terms of preventing heart attacks and strokes. For men with risk factors, the majority of the studies show that they may prevent heart attacks but don’t decrease your risk of dying. Cholesterol lowering does not prevent heart attacks in women without heart disease or in men without heart disease who are over the age of 70.

And taking a statin won’t prevent you from having a heart attack or dying if you have heart disease. It only slightly lowers your risk, by about 0.2% per year. The only study to show that statins reduce risk of death in patients without heart disease showed that although after 15 years men taking Pravachol had fewer deaths (106 versus 135 on placebo), there was a 51% increase in prostate cancer. Other studies have shown a slight increase in the risk of cancer, especially with the use of high dose statins to bring cholesterol down to very low levels. Statins can also cause liver damage, depression, memory problems, and joint pain. They can also cause damage to the muscle tissue which results in muscle pain. In rare cases this can lead to a breakdown of the muscle tissue which results in kidney failure. Zetia can headache, dizziness, diarrhea, muscle and joint pain, and more rarely jaundice, gall stones or inflammation of the pancreas.

Bottom line? The drugs you are taking to prevent heart disease may not be as useful as you think, and in some cases may be doing more harm than good. Let the buyer beware.