Cardio-vascular diseases top the list of major diseases the world over. Medical experts opine that a high cholesterol level in the bloodstream is the single major causative factor in this group of diseases. So what causes high levels of cholesterol in the blood, and what can you do to prevent that from happening to you? Let’s find out.
Definition of triglycerides
Cholesterol gets so much bad press that it’s hard to believe that your body actually needs it. There are two kinds of cholesterol in your body, good cholesterol also known as HDL cholesterol, and bad cholesterol or LDL cholesterol. Cholesterol in your body is necessary to make hormones, vitamin D and bile salts.
Atherosclerosis is known commonly as hardening of the arteries and is one of the leading signs of high cholesterol. It also is a danger signal for an increased risk of stroke or heart attack. Making sure your cholesterol levels are in balance is of utmost importance. It is possible to reduce cholesterol naturally through simple diet adjustments and cholesterol lowering dietary supplements.
With a growing number of people looking to take care of their health through natural methods these days, then it stands to reason there is a growing demand for high cholesterol natural remedies. This is probably due in no small part to the fact that statin drugs that have been traditionally used to treat cholesterol levels have so many side effects which are bad for you, means that many people will ultimately want to use a safe alternative. Of course there are different forms of high cholesterol natural remedies, however here are three that can give you a head start in controlling your cholesterol levels.
If you have high cholesterol levels and are wanting to eat certain foods to lower cholesterol, what you have to remember is that although food can play a part in cholesterol levels the main factor in how much is in your bloodstream is down to how much your liver produces. However, every little helps and if there are certain foods to lower cholesterol available, why not use them?
If you go to see a doctor to discuss the need to reduce cholesterol, chances are that they will probably just advise you to go on a course of statins. If this happens to you think very carefully before agreeing to it, because not only are these drugs something that you will be on for the rest of your life, but also they do have some pretty nasty side effects too. So before you go down the route of using statins you may want to try these three simple steps to help you reduce cholesterol naturally.
Having low HDL cholesterol can be as bad for you as having too high LDL levels. These two different types of cholesterol are often renamed good and bad, yet neither of them are good or bad in reality, as they are both essential to your body; you just need to have them in the right balance. The right balance is high HDL and low LDL, this is because the HDL is needed to take the LDL back to your liver to be reprocessed, and if you have low HDL cholesterol then this will lead to a build up of LDL which can lead to health problems.
Over the years there have been many different types of cholesterol lowering drugs, the most recent of which are Vytorin and Zetia. However, it appears that these two cholesterol lowering drugs are not very effective therefore a lot of doctors are going back to prescribing statins. The problem with statins though, is that although they are very good at reducing high cholesterol, they also bring with them some side effects which can have quite severe health consequences.
When it comes to different ways how to reduce your cholesterol levels, what we have to bear in mind is that having high good cholesterol (HDL) is important. The only cholesterol that we want to reduce is the bad cholesterol (LDL). But even then we do not want to totally eliminate it because we actually need this cholesterol in our bodies for them to function properly. To a greater extent your cholesterol levels are determined by the amount that is supplied by your liver, however the type of food that you consume can give you a helping hand and although it does not have a huge impact it has an impact nevertheless. That being the case let us now have a look at three foods which can help with your cholesterol levels.