Archive for the ‘Recipes’ tag
Some Facts Concerning Cholesterol And Triglycerides no comments
Cholesterol has a bad press to be certain, but this is because the press does not usually give the full story. It is easier and more frightening to leave a couple of bits out. The fact is that we have to have cholesterol and triglycerides for that matter in order to live normally. The point where these fats become a problem is when we have too high a percentage of them in our blood.
This is a comparable situation to having a lot of sugar in the blood on a regular basis, which is otherwise called diabetes. A different word for this is hyperglycaemia and hyperglycaemia can be a cause of having too many triglycerides in the blood as well, which by the way is known as hypertriglyceridemia. ‘Hyper’ meaning ‘too much’.
Cholesterol and triglycerides are the two main fats in our blood system. Cholesterol and triglycerides come from the foodstuffs that we consume, but our own bodies create them too. Cholesterol is crucial for several basic bodily functions like regulating hormones and making bile.
Having said that, there are two types of cholesterol: low and high density cholesterol. The low end can go very low and the lower it goes the worse it is for you. This is a very complicated issue which is better explained in a longer piece, but all you have to keep in mind is that low density or LDL is bad and high density cholesterol is ‘good’.
This is a very simplistic description, but it is the one that we are told of in the popular press. HDL cholesterol is believed to help mop up LDL cholesterol, which is why it is called good.
If this natural process does not take place or goes out of balance, the LDL cholesterol waxy fat will stick to the walls of arteries making them thinner, narrower. This is called atherosclerosis (furring of the arteries) and means that the heart has to pump blood harder in order to get oxygen to every part of the body.
This is known as hypertension or high blood pressure and puts the heart at danger of stress and failure – coronary heart disease and stroke are the possible results of furred arteries.
There is a lot that you can do to adjust any concerns with your cholesterol levels. Most of our cholesterol comes from eating red meat and full-fat dairy products, so merely by replacing every other steak with a salad could hugely reduce your problem. There are other ways of doing this too, like exercise.
Exercise is a good way of burning up the surplus fats in your blood stream, but it has to be carried out on a daily basis. Not that it takes much. If you think of what you eat and reduce the foodstuffs heavy in cholesterol, you might only require 30 minutes moderate exercise a day in order to become healthy.
The fact is that if you do not do something about your state of affairs, you will be put on tablets for the rest of your life. You may think that this is a fair alternative to diet and exercise, but it is not really. It is only the simple option.
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a lot of topics, but is now involved with the question: what is a triglyceride?. If you want to know more, please visit our web site at What Foods Lower Cholesterol?
What I need to know about Gas no comments
You already know that, to achieve true health, your diet needs to be sensible and nutritious and you need to get a good amount of exercise. Sadly, we do not always have the time or the power that this type of lifestyle involves. When our work day is complete, most people do not prefer to go to the gym. We want a tasty, greasy burger, not an equally scrumptious salad (unless we’re vegetarians). You will be happy to discover that becoming healthy doesn’t have to be hard. With training you can get all of the nutrients and the exercise that you need. Here are some of the best methods to be healthy and balanced.
When you go to the grocery store, be smart about it. If you make smart choices when you are shopping for your groceries, you will be eating better meals by default. Think for a second: you don’t want to go to a chaotic grocery store or sit in a lengthy line at the drive thru at the end of your day. You’re going to go home and cook what you have in the cupboards. Make sure that what you already have is nutritious. This makes it easy to have a great meal–even if you want something junky–because you’ll be eating something that is obviously better for you than anything you’d buy in a hurry at the store or in the fast food joint.
Walk up the stairs. Rather than riding an elevator, climb up the stairs to the floor you live or work on. Obviously this isn’t as plausible if you work on the 25th floor of a high rise, but if you work on the fourth, climbing the stairs is a fantastic way to get some exercise in. If you do work on a very high floor, why not get off the elevator a few floors early and walk the rest of the way? So many people choose the elevator over clambering even a single flight of stairs. That just one flight of stairs-when taken a handful of times a day-can be just the added boost that your system needs.
Run the stairs. Walk up the stairs to where you live or work as opposed to using the elevator. Obviously this isn’t as possible if you work on the 25th floor of a high rise, but if you work on the fourth, climbing the stairs is a excellent way to get some exercise in. If you do work on a super high floor, why not get off the elevator a few floors early and walk the rest of the way? So many people choose the elevator over climbing even a single flight of stairs. Even just a single flight of stairs, when walked up or down a few times a day–can be a great boost to your system.
Select water over other drinks. Having a soda or a cup of coffee every now and then isn’t a terrible idea. Using them for your sole source of hydration, on the other hand, is dumb. Drinking water instead of other types of drinks is a good way to aid your body in its health and hydration. Doing this helps you cut hundreds of calories out of your diet without your having to suffer through a bunch of gross diet food. Effective weight loss efforts often depend solely on water consumption.
There are lots of things you can pursue to become healthy. Not all of them necessitate fancy gym memberships or restricted diets. Little things, when done each day, can do a great deal to make it easier to get healthy and lose pounds. Being intelligent when you choose your food and actions is where it begins. A proper amount of physical activity each day is also critical. The numbers on the scale aren’t the only indication of your lifestyle choices. You need to help make your body as strong as possible.[youtube:FCPCu45xf1g?version=3;[link: Coffee Carafes|Mr Coffee Carafe|Best Drip Coffee Maker|Cuisinart Coffee Maker Parts|Coffee Tea Maker|Top Rated Coffee Makers|Percolator Coffee Pot];http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCPCu45xf1g?version=3&feature=related]
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How To Use Examples Of Low Cholesterol Diets no comments
Although more and more people are becoming aware that they should follow a low (er) cholesterol diet as they become older, they may not be aware of how to do this. Individuals eat out a great deal more now than ever before or they have food delivered.
Unfortunately most of the food consumed at or from these places has a poor record when it comes to regulating cholesterol. You will find it difficult to impossible to follow a low cholesterol diet and eat junk food at the same time.
There are plenty of examples of low cholesterol diets on the Internet and it would be a useful thing for you to look at some of these until you find a chef’s recipes that match your tastes.
For example, one cook might favour vegetarian cooking and so would create a collection of low cholesterol recipes containing vegetarian food, while another chef may favour fish and so would create plenty of low cholesterol recipes involving fish.
Obviously, if you have more diverse tastes then the world is your oyster and you can mix and match recipes from all around the world. There are a number of cultures that do not eat meat at all, for instance, the Hindus. There are thousands of Hindu recipes which are obviously low in cholesterol or which could be readily adapted by substituting olive oil for ghee as the oil in which to cook.
Or you might like the Japanese style of cooking, which uses a higher proportion of fish than people eat in the West. Fish is a very good source for example of HDL, or good, cholesterol. Japanese meals can be of several different styles. an unusual one of which is sushi, which has become favourite with the trend-setters.
Chinese and Thai food also contains far less meat that traditional Western recipes. They also tend to cook using soya oil, which is a product known to reduce the level of LDL or ‘bad’ cholesterol. If, when you look at traditional recipes from these countries, you notice something you could improve on then go ahead and adapt it.
For instance, if you go to a Chinese restaurant, you always get white rice. Why not substitute brown rice? The same goes for Thai food. Brown rice is fed to prisoners in Thai gaols, so it is coupled with low class, hence Thais eat white rice. But you do not have to.
If you like barbecues, you might have to lay off the steaks, chops, sausages and burgers, but you can still barbecue all kinds of fish, crabs, prawns and lobster. Eels are good for a barbecue as well and so is unleaven bread and some vegetables such as sweet corn.
There are so many examples of low cholesterol diets that eating in this way does not have to become monotonous. In fact, it might just open your eyes to some of the other ways of cooking going on in the world. You may just end up realizing that most of the meals in your life up to now have been fairly similar.
When you are searching for examples of low cholesterol diets, bear in mind that adaptation and substitution are the best tactics – be adaptable and enjoy your new, healthier diet.
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on numerous topics, but is now concerned with lowering cholesterol without medication. If you want to know more, please visit our web site at What Foods Lower Cholesterol?
How To Reduce Cholesterol Without Statins no comments
Most individuals think that cholesterol issues just affect older individuals, but this is not true. High degrees of cholesterol can also be discovered in the young. In one study, 75 % of those checked had a yellow waxy substance in their blood – LDL cholesterol – it is considered to be a reliable indication of future heart problems. The surprising thing about this study was that they were all fit American soldiers with an average age of just 21.
Now we do require some LDL cholesterol because it is used by the body to control some vital functions and we definitely require HDL cholesterol because it helps regulate LDL cholesterol. The only problem is the volume of these substances. High levels of LDL have been connected to atherosclerosis, which leads to heart disease.
If you would like to begin working on your cholesterol levels in a maintenance type of fashion, you can do so with the aid of exercise and diet. The exercise element does not need to be grueling. Strolling for an hour a day will do the trick if it is in conjunction with healthy dieting.
The diet should include plenty of fibre and roughage because not only will it reduce LDL cholesterol, but it will also help your bowels to work properly which lowers your chance of getting bowel cancer, the incidence of which is rising these days.
Foods that are rich in fibre and roughage are fruit and vegetables, particularly greens; beans, pulses and grains, particularly oats as in porridge; nuts and soya. It is fairly easy to increase your consumption of these foodstuffs without radically changing you normal diet, although it is sensible to substitute skinless chicken and fish for beef and pork.
For example, you could eat porridge for breakfast and add a handful of barley to your soup. You could add a few leaves of lettuce to your sandwich and eat fruit as snacks throughout the day. You could have beans on toast every now and again. Whole grain bread, obviously.
Some foods have a particularly healthy reputation for lowering cholesterol levels. Avocado is one because it contains a great deal of mono-unsaturated fats which raise the degree of HDL and HDL counteracts LDL. Raw carrots are another one. Raw carrots contain plenty of pectin, which reduces LDL. Pectin is also present in substantial quantities in citrus fruits, apples and berries such as strawberries, raspberries and red and black berries.
Then there are other famously healthy foodstuffs like garlic and shitake mushrooms which are also considered to ward off cancer and boost the immune system as a whole. Ginger is another healthy food that is easily incorporated into dishes.
Nuts, especially walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans and almonds are high in Omega 3 fatty acids which has a beneficial impact on LDL cholesterol. Sesame seeds contain phytosterols, which also lowers LDL. Other foods containing phytosterols are: celery, lettuce, asparagus, spinach and tomatoes.
You ought to strive to eat mono- and poly-unsaturated fats as they will improve your HDL. You can find these fats in cannola, safflower, soya bean and olive oil. They also contain Omega 3. Other sources of Omega 3 are fish, especially the fatty fish like tuna, salmon and mackerel.
Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on several topics, but is now concerned with food that lowers cholesterol. If you want to know more, please visit our web site at What Foods Lower Cholesterol?
Garlic For Combatting Infection And Cholesterol no comments
Everybody has to have heard that garlic is very good for you by now. In spite of that, there are still sceptics, but that is normally because it is a problem to identify a difference. Garlic is more preventative than curative.
You have to build up an amount of ‘garlic’ in your body before it can do you a great deal of help. Garlic will be much less effective if you try eating it after the event, because it takes so long to make up the quantities you need, depending on how much you eat, obviously.
Once you realize that, it becomes obvious that you should be eating garlic every day, not just when you are already sick. Some cultures are happy to smell of garlic all day long, but others are not. For these individuals, there are garlic supplements and even de-odourized garlic supplements.
Garlic has been utilized as an antiseptic for centuries, if not longer, but contemporary studies have shown that it is also helpful in the battle against cholesterol – the bugbear of the Twenty-First Century, as populations all over the world, but especially in the West inflate into obesity.
If you are the sort of person who would rather eat the real thing than a supplement, but are not keen on being known for your garlic breath, there are things that you can do to minimize the smell. Thais cook garlic very rapidly and it goes into each meal, but you would hardly ever know it.
Cooking it quickly seems to kill the smell on your breath. Chewing parsley or gargling with and then drinking lemon juice are ways of minimizing the smell of garlic.
However, you could eat fresh garlic on the weekend but take supplements during the week, while you have to go to work. If you are searching for garlic supplements, you will come across dozens of different kinds. However, all you really have to know is whether the pill is odourless or not and how much alicin is in it. Alicin is the active ingredient that you are interested in.
Cold-pressed garlic is said to be odourless, so you might look out for that on the label. Alicin is also sometimes coupled with other general system boosters or tonics like echinacea. You will have to carry out some research before you buy, because ‘specialists’ disagree on everything except that garlic is healthy for you.
Eating garlic on a daily basis ought to make a difference to your cholesterol levels over time – a month or two -, but will also offer longterm help. If you are already being tracked for cholesterol by your doctor, tell him or her what you are doing and then you have a point of reference to judge how effective garlic is in lowering cholesterol in your case
Garlic will almost certainly never be enough on its own to protect you from high degrees of cholesterol, but that would be asking too much anyway. Instead, you ought to perceive garlic as another foot soldier in the battle.
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on several topics, but is now concerned with lowering cholesterol without medication. If you want to know more, please visit our web site at What Foods Lower Cholesterol?
Combatting High Cholesterol no comments
Cholesterol can be highly perilous. Not in lesser quantities and not even all cholesterol, because there are two sorts. One is healthy for you, because it helps mop up the other one which is bad for you in large quantities. HDL cholesterol is termed the good cholesterol and LDL the bad cholesterol, although we need some LDL in order to control some of our bodily functions
Too much LDL in our blood streams can result in clogging which in turn would lead to higher blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes. So what can you do about it? There are three prongs you can use to attack cholesterol: diet, exercise and medication. Most individuals do not want to be on tablets every day for life, but some do not mind.
So, the first thing to do is get into the routine of exercising each day. The minimum exercise you have to be doing is walking for thirty minutes every morning and every evening. You may think that you do not have an hour a day to give up, but you almost certainly do.
If you have a lunch break, what do you do in it? Eat? Read the paper? Have a talk? OK, why not choose a greengrocer’s that is fifteen minutes walk away and go and buy an apple each day? In the evening, you could go for a walk with your spouse or your dog. In that fashion, you have just thirty minutes to find in order to stay healthy.
How can food lower your cholesterol? Well, there is cholesterol in almost everything we eat, so it is a question of remembering which type of cholesterol is in which food and being discriminating. In general, this means avoiding food that is high in saturated fats and trans or hydrogenated fats and eating more foodstuff that has mono- or poly-unsaturated fats.
This is not as bad as it sounds anything you purchase in a tin or a tub will or should have the sorts of fat written in the contents list. You will merely have to learn which fresh food is good for you. In essence, red meat and dairy products are not particularly healthy for you. Try swapping skinless chicken and fish for beef and pork. Drink skimmed milk, if you have to drink milk and give up butter.
In fact, some margarines have been specially made to reduce cholesterol and, yes, they do work, it is not a scam. It is often said that liver and eggs are high in cholesterol, but according to the British Heart Foundation, our bodies cannot access this cholesterol, so it is OK to include them in a low cholesterol diet.
Fresh fruit and vegetables are the real friends in the battle against high cholesterol. Bananas are particularly good and so are citrus fruits. Nuts are also healthy for you and in particular almonds and walnuts. Tofu and other soya bean foodstuffs are beneficial and will even lower cholesterol.
Roughage and fibre are very useful for reducing cholesterol and one of the best meals you can have is a dish of porridge in the morning for breakfast.
Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on several subjects, but is now concerned with lowering cholesterol without medication. If you want to know more, please visit our site at What Foods Lower Cholesterol?
Rapid Weight Loss Myths no comments
There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to be slimmer just to have a sexier body. Many people have moulded their bodies to make them look more healthy and more attractive. However, there is no way to attain this new look in a day of two. The problem is that most people do not want to wait, they want it now.
This can lead to these people making rather rash and, it has top be said, rather silly decisions. They are not willing to wait and they are not willing to work for what they want. This is why so many people turn to rapid weight loss diets. Some ‘guru’ brings out a new fad diet and a good proportion of the ‘I want it now’ crowd jump on the band wagon. Only to be disappointed again within the year or less.
Speed diets or rapid weight loss diets tend to put out great advertising copy that is very difficult to resist. However, all diets, no matter which one you choose, Weight Watchers, Atkins or fad diet, depend on overweight people making lifestyle changes in order for them to work permanently.
There is a very apposite saying: if you always do what you always did, then you will always get what you always got. That says it all. You can lose weight with all but the stupidest of diets, but if you go back to your old ways when you hit your target weight, you MUST slowly, but surely creep back to your old weight.
If you give your body more calories than it needs, it will store them for when it does need them. The problem is that that day never comes for too many people, because they never exert themselves. This is particularly true of fad diets like the ‘cabbage water’ diet. Yes, you will lose weight on it, but you would lose weight by fasting whatever you did. For a while, and then you might get sick. For a diet to work, it has to be adaptable and enjoyable enough for you to be able to stick with it for the rest of your life. Make no mistake, dieting is long-haul.
Many rapid weight loss programs actually only squeeze the water out of you. Just like a wet sponge. But a good dieter maintains his or her grip on that sponge, not letting it soak up water again. The problem with short term dieting, is that you let go of the sponge underwater.
This is why serial dieters first lose weight and are delighted; then finish dieting, go back to their old weight and become depressed. In that state of depression they are suckers for the advertisers of the next latest craze diet. In other words, they are being manipulated and literally squeezed dry, but of their cash too.
These silly rapid weight loss programs also include fat loss pills. They are not making you lose fat, well, maybe a tiny amount gets washed out with all the excess water you are carrying. They are only diuretics under another name. How many pills would I sell if I called them diuretics? How many more would I sell if I called them miracle fat loss pills?
Type the word diuretic into a engine and find out more about them. They are all around you in mild healthy forms. A diuretic will essentially cause your body to lose more fluid than was in the diuretic. Tea is a diuretic, for example.
This list of these dopey dieting aids to rapid weight loss goes on and on, but someone must be buying them and you can bet your bottom dollar that it is the sad, depressed dieter who let go of the sponge.
Slimming soap! Slimming soap is being advertised as being a rare Eastern remedy for corpulence. Well, let me tell you, I live in the East and I have never seen it here. Asians are slim because they do a lot of physical work and do not come under the pressure to eat junk food that Westerners do, although that situation is changing rapidly too.
Magnetic weight loss earrings, I ask you! Even being inebriated without a present for your wife ten minutes before Christmas Day is not a good enough excuse to fall for this one, surely? The advertisers say that the secret of this set of earrings is that they are magnetic.
Well, if you believe this, why not get a pair of $1 children’s toy magnets or even a couple of fridge magnets and put one in each hip pocket? Two? Well, after all, you would not want to lose weight from only one side, would you? You would be lop sided.
Just remember, when you are looking for a rapid weight loss diet: there ain’t one ( that will work for life). If you are putting on weight, then your lifestyle is wrong and it is up to you alone to change it.
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with how to lose weight online. If you have an interest in losing weight too, please go over to our website now at Why Can’t I Lose Weight?
Cholesterol Reducing Vitamins And Drugs no comments
A high degree of LDL cholesterol or high combined level of cholesterol is perilous because it can obstruct your arteries, causing your heart to have to work harder to pump oxygenated blood to where it has to be.This in turn increases blood pressure and high blood pressure is one of the foremost causes of heart disease, which can mean a heart attack.
That is why your medical doctor will advise you to implement lifestyle changes to reduce your degrees of cholesterol as soon as he or she is aware that there is a problem. These lifestyle alterations normally involve giving up smoking, dieting and taking more exercise.
However, most people have a great deal of trouble implementing lifestyle changes – altering the habits of a lifetime, quite literally – but the GP cannot permit the situation to continue. If after a time, you have been unsuccessful in your efforts to reduce your cholesterol obviously, your physician will eventually prescribe tablets and / or drugs in a bid to help you live longer.
There are a couple of main drugs used to fight cholesterol: the statins and the bile acid sequestrants.
Statins work by blocking the enzyme HMG-CoA, which is important in the process of converting fat into cholesterol. Statins are the most effective drug in the battle against cholesterol and are very widely used in the West.
In fact, some countries and some doctors are accused of handing them out like candy. However, they will take effect quickly if drastic action is required, which is one of the reasons why they are prescribed so frequently.
Bile Acid Sequestrants work by binding with the bile made by the liver and preventing it from interacting with fat. Bile is used in the digestion process, so if it cannot interact with the fat, the fat passes through the body digested.
The most important vitamin in the fight against cholesterol is Vitamin B3, which is called Niacin. Niacin is one of the water-soluble B vitamins which help the body change carbohydrates into glucose which it uses for energy. The B group vitamins are also involved with the breaking down of fat and protein.
The vitamin B group plays an vital role in keeping our liver and nervous system working well and our external features looking good: the eyes, hair and skin. Niacin in particular is helpful for getting rid of the toxins tha build up in the body.
However, before you rush out and purchase bottles of Niacin tablets, be warned that too much Niacin can have unpleasant side effects, so only make sure that you consume the recommended daily amount (RDA.
Other vitamins that will help out are Lecithin and Vitamins C and E. These vitamins help by protecting LDL from becoming damaged. This sounds bizarre because we are told to think of LDL as ‘bad cholesterol’. However, many cardiologists are of the opinion that just damaged LDL is perilous to our heart.
So, once again, it is a question of specialists not all agreeing with each other leaving us stuck in the middle hazarding a guess as to whom to believe.
Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on numerous topics, but is now concerned with lowering cholesterol without medication. If you want to know more, please visit our web site at What Foods Lower Cholesterol?
High Cholesterol Levels and Diabetes Is Dangerous no comments
Diabetes is a chronic disease which can have numerous side effects. The condition (usually) comes about as a result of the pancreas not producing enough insulin, which you require to deal with the sugar level in your blood. Having diabetes, or too much sugar in your blood can have serious results such as cataracts (treatable blindness), bad teeth and an elevated danger of general infections.
However what many individuals do not comprehend is that there is a connection between high cholesterol levels and diabetes. This link is called macular edema and it affects eyesight. If you have diabetes and elevated cholesterol levels, you ought to be paying meticulous attention to your diet in order to avoid macular edema
Macular edema is frequently a painful, non-reversible kind of blindness.
In case you are uncertain about cholesterol, it would be best if we talk about this topic in order to clarify. Individuals talk of ‘cholesterol levels’ because there are three measurements that are important. HDL cholesterol is frequently called ‘good cholesterol’ and LDL cholesterol is known as bad cholesterol.
It is vital to have LDL because it assists in the production of bile and vitamin D and it helps regulate hormones, but too much of it can screen arteries and cause heart issues. HDL is ‘good’ because it soaks up LDL and takes it back to the liver where it is disposed of.
Those are the two main levels. You would be forgiven for thinking that it is best to have as much HDL as you can, and this is a fact, to a large extent, because you do require LDL too, but the combined of both of these levels is also important. You should not have a high level of both combined either.
The added reason why these levels are more relevant to diabetics is because diabetics with a high level of LDL run roughly three times more danger of developing macular edema than non-diabetics. Therefore the danger of high cholesterol for diabetics is imperative.
This is such a significant difficulty that diabetics are advised to check the levels of their cholesterol very often. The good news is that diabetics will already be following a diet and the decreased cholesterol diet is pretty similar and is easy to integrate into your current routine.
The foodstuffs that you ought to avoid to reduce your level LDL cholesterol include saturated fats such as are discovered in red meat and dairy products like full-fat milk, butter, cream and cheese. It is also present in trans and hydrogenated fats, which are present in junk foods and cheap margarine.
The foodstuffs to eat in order to raise your level of LDL are basically mono- and poly-unsaturated fats, vegetarian foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables, soya products, fish, nuts and grains, particularly whole grains. Roughage and fibre are what you ought to be looking for. Fish and olive oil are also useful in the battle against LDL cholesterol.
Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on numerous subjects, but is now concerned with lowering cholesterol without medication. If you want to know more, please visit our web site at What Foods Lower Cholesterol?
How To Lower Cholesterol Through Diet no comments
I have heard people say that they want to lower their cholesterol levels in order to lose weight. The reason for lowering your cholesterol levels is not because you would like to lose weight. That is putting the cart before the horse. You probably only have a few grammes of cholesterol in your body, so reducing that amount is not going to make you look any slimmer.
The reason for shedding weight can include wanting to reduce your cholesterol levels; it can also include wanting to reduce your blood pressure; it can include wanting to take weight off your joints and it can include wanting to look healthier.
But there are a number of other reasons too: losing weight will increase your general feeling of well-being, making you feel better and happier in general and lower your likelihood of developing diabetes.
This piece is about cholesterol and how to lower the amount of cholesterol in your blood. So, first of all, what is cholesterol? The first thing to do is clear up the misapprehension that all cholesterol is bad. It is not. There are two sorts of cholesterol: LDL cholesterol is bad for you for sure, but HDL cholesterol is useful for you because it assists mop up LDL.
In fact, not all LDL is bad either, your body requires some LDL to create bile, vitamin D and maintain the correct balance of hormones, especially in women. So LDL gets a very bad press, but it is not a total villain. The problems start if you have excess. It is like guests at a party, you have to have some, but too many and there are problems.
If you have excess LDL, it can obstruct your arteries, causing your heart to have to pump more, raising blood pressure and consequently raising the risk of kidney failure, strokes and heart attacks.
How do you get too much LDL? Most LDL is taken into our bodies by eating saturated fats (animal fats) and hydrogenated or trans fats (normally discovered in junk food).
HDL picks up our excess LDL and transports it back to the liver where it is dealt with. HDL is to be discovered in nuts, grains, pulses, fish oil and mono-unsaturated or poly-unsaturated fats. Therefore, the strategy in a nutshell is, if you are attempting to lower your LDL level through diet is to eat less animal fat as discovered in red meat and dairy produce and eat more vegetarian food and fish.
In particular, LDL is to be found in high quantities in beef, pork, milk, cheese, butter, cream, hamburgers, hot dogs, potato crisps, potato chips, et cetera and HDL is to be found in fresh fruit and vegetables, nuts, fish, whole grains, soya et cetera.
There are also a few myths. Some individuals say that eggs, liver and prawns are high in LDL, but the British Heart Foundation says that humans cannot process cholesterol from these foods, so they are safe to eat and others say that coconut is high in LDL too.
It is hard to find agreement on coconut, but it seems that it raises LDL and HDL, but HDL by a little bit more than it raises LDL. So, not good for you if you have high levels of cholesterol, but good if you have low levels.
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on numerous topics, but is now concerned with lowering cholesterol without medication. If you want to know more, please visit our site at What Foods Lower Cholesterol?