While having a healthy diet is crucial to maintaining a normal blood cholesterol level, other healthy lifestyle changes will make a difference too.

1. Exercise

Exercising keeps your weight down, strengthens your heart, improves circulation and releases stress. Regular workout lowers blood pressure, reduces triglycerides and raises HDL levels.

2. Keep weight down

Excess weight contributes to high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes, all risk factors for heart disease. Obesity increases heart attack risk significantly. Losing weight can lower the risk.

3. Quit smoking

Cigarette smoke injures artery lining, elevates LDL, lowers HDL and facilitate clog formation. Risk of heart disease lowers soon after quitting.

4. Relax

Anxiety and hostility put stress on the cardiovascular system. Relaxation can mend it. Meditation has been shown to reduce stress, blood pressure, cholesterol and atherosclerosis.

Lifestyle changes are critical to your heart health. To read the original article, click here.

Also see Control Your Cholesterol (1) — Basics, (2) — Diet, and (4) — Other measures.

Besides lifestyle changes, people with borderline high cholesterol may want to use some herbs and vitamins to help lower cholesterol level. There are also prescription medications to help those who have elevated cholesterol levels.

1. B vitamins

Niacin, or vitamin B3, raises HDL, lowers LDL and triclycerides and reduces risk of dying from heart disease.

Other B vitamins lowers blood homocysteine, which is another risk factor for heart disease. Some B vitamins, such as folic acid, B6, B12, can induce regression of atherosclerosis.

2. Garlic

Garlic contains antioxidants that prevent LDL from oxidization. It mildly lower blood pressure and inhibits blood clog formation.

Garlic also lowers LDL and triglycerides and raises HDL. It inhibits the manufacture of cholesterol in liver too.

3. Soy

Soy products reduce cholesterol, lower blood pressure, reduce atherosclerosis and increase elasticity of arteries. Soy also facilitates LDL metabolism in liver.

To read the original article, click here. Also see Control Your Cholesterol (1) — Basics, (2) — Diet, and (3) — Other Lifestyle Changes.

Cholesterol is made by our livers and is important to maintain healthy cells and to make hormones.

We also get cholesterol from diet: red meat, poultry, fish, eggs and dairy products.

Low-density lipoproteins (LDL; “bad” cholesterol) is the type we want to lower. It transports cholesterol to tissues, while high-density lipoproteins (HDL; “good” cholesterol) transfer cholesterol from tissue to liver. HDL is the type we want to increase.

High levels of LDL eventually causes atherosclerosis (hardening of arteries) which leads to heart attacks and strokes.

Atherosclerosis often starts slowly in childhood and progresses year after year. It usually begins with an injury to an artery’s lining caused by high blood pressure, tobacco, etc.

Cholesterol and other fats will then deposit at the damaged site and gradually form plaque, which impedes blood flow or breaks down and block arteries in important organs, like heart or brain.

Although in some people, genetics plays a role in high cholesterol, unhealthy lifestyle accounts for most of the cases.

There are prescription drugs and herbal supplements that help to lower cholesterol. However, for many of us, simple changes in lifestyle will benefit much.

To read the original article, click here. Also see Control Your Cholesterol (2) — Diet, (3)  — Other Lifestyle Changes, and (4) — Other measures.

There are 3 numbers you should know about yourself that will help you assess your cardiac risk. Lifestyle changes and medications to improve those numbers may save your life.

A. Blood Pressure

Blood pressure (BP) consists of two parts: systolic (when heart pumps) and diastolic (between heart beats). One is normal doesn’t mean you are okay.

Normal BP is below 120/80mmHg. Pre-hypertension is 120-139/80-89mmHg. Hypertension is 140/90mmHg or higher.

High BP increases your risk of heart attacks and stroke.

B. Cholesterol

A “lipid profile” is usually composed of 3 numbers: HDL (good cholesterol), LDL (bad cholesterol) and triglycerides.

Total cholesterol should be below 200mg/dL. Normal HDL is 50mg/dL or higher for women and 40mg/dL or higher for men. LDL should be under 100mg/dL and triglycerides under 150mg/dL

High LDL and triglycerides contributes to hardening of arteries (atherosclerosis), which relates to heart disease and stroke.

C. Waist Size

Believe it or not, waist size predicts heart disease risk.

Your risk of having heart attacks, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol increases when your waist size is over 35 inches if you are a woman, and 40 inches if you are a man.

Losing even one inch of waist size will improve all other heart health numbers.

Source: www.WebMD.com

Lowering blood cholesterol decreases the risk of heart attack and stroke. Good eating habit is an important part of a healthy lifestyle that can prevent heart disease and reverse atherosclerosis.

1. More plant foods

A diet of fruits, vegetables, beans, whole grains, plus some fish and poultry can significantly lower the risk of a heart attack compared to a diet rich in sweets, fried foods, refined grains and red processed meats.

Plant foods are often high in fiber and plant sterols that lower cholesterol. They are also rich in antioxidants, which prevent LDL from oxidizing.

2. The good fats

Saturated fat, dietary cholesterol and trans fats raise blood cholesterol. The first two come from animal products. Trans fats are processed vegetable oil and found in margarine, crackers and processed snacks.

Monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats are good fats and help lower LDL. They can are in canola oil, olive oil, peanut oil, safflower, sesame and sunflower seeds, soybeans, nuts, etc.

3. Oats, beans and amaranth.

They all lower cholesterol. Oats also lower blood pressure.

4. Purple grapes and berries.

Blue, purple and red berries and grapes contain bioflavonoids, which are strong antioxidants that repair damages on artery linings.

Enjoy red wine too, which also contains this antioxidant. However, while moderate drinking has a protective effect, heavy drinking increases heart attack risk.

To read the original article, click here.  Also see Control Your Cholesterol (1) — Basics, (3) — Other Lifestyle Changes, (4) — Other measures.