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.
Just as the name suggests the bad cholesterol causes complications in our body. What happens is the LDL cholesterol or the bad cholesterol tends to deposit the cholesterol on the walls of the artery, thereby creating a substance called plague. This plague narrows the arteries and blocks them which give rise to heart attack by blocking the blood on the way to the heart.
Increase in Cholesterol levels – Reasons
There are a lot of confusing terms being thrown around when it comes to cholesterol. Dietary cholesterol is one of those terms. You might think that all dietary cholesterol is bad, but in fact dietary cholesterol does not raise blood cholesterol as much as you might think. The two bad guys here are trans fatty acids and saturated fats.
Therefore the best way to tackle the cholesterol problem is to cut down the levels of LDL or bad cholesterol. The most effective way the world over is the diet. You will have to make certain dietary changes in your daily routine. More to the point, as you cut down on food that are bad for cholesterol such as eggs, meat, and seafood, you can also fill up yourself with food that are LDL cholesterol friendly.
Trans fatty acids are found in a lot of packaged food. Microwave popcorn, hard stick margarine and some French fries from certain fast food chains are all culprits. By eliminating these foods or finding better substitutes you can cut down your consumption of trans fatty acids that will all contribute to the level of bad cholesterol in your system.
How good are good fats
You can increase the amount of good cholesterol in your body while reducing the bad cholesterol. This is because the presence of good cholesterol in your body means that excess cholesterol will be taken back to the liver to be excreted out of your body. This means you want plenty of good cholesterol as high levels of good cholesterol means a reduced risk of heart disease.
The level of good cholesterol can be increased by bringing out a slight change in the lifestyle like consuming foods have rich soluble fibers, polyunsaturated fats and fats that are monounsaturated.
Exercise daily for an hour to help decrease cholesterol. Alcohol is strictly prohibited. But if that is not possible, stick to one glass of alcohol as far as women are concerned and two glasses for men.
Cholesterol information and resources. Get the know about the healthy cholesterol level for better living.
