Cholesterol Heart Friendly Foods

Heart disease is a serious health issue. It is usually caused by unhealthly levels of cholesterol. There are many reasons why people can have unhealthy cholesterol levels. On its own, being overweight can not explain away heart disease but it can cause an increase in a person's cholesterol levels. Lowering your bad cholesterol and increasing your good cholesterol can be done by losing weight. Exercise, age, and gender also play an important part in whether you are at risk for having high cholesterol. How much cholesterol your body will make is sometimes determined by genetics and there is nothing you can do about the genes you received from your Mom and Dad. Generations of families can have high cholesterol. Certain diets can also lower your cholesterol level.                                                                                                                                          A low-cholesterol diet is one of the main ways in improving your cholesterol. By cutting the bad cholesterol that you eat by ten to twenty percent, you can improve the health of your heart. A good example of foods that are rich in healthy fats are vegetable oils and fish. These are foods that have good cholesterol. Foods that contain high saturated and trans fats should be eaten very sparingly. Instead of using butter and trans-fat margarines, use canola, and olive oil in your low-cholesterol diet. Using white wine vinegar to keep your pan moist while cooking instead of butter will get you off to a good start in preparing healthier meals. Your food will taste the same but minus the high cholesterol. Instead of using whole eggs , you can use cholesterol-free egg substitute.                                                                                                                                  Changing your diet the right way will decrease your chances of heart disease. When some people want to "look good" for a certain occasion, they change their diet but they go about it the wrong way. Actually, low-fat, high-carb diets can raise your cholesterol levels. Cholesterol is so important to the human body that your body has a backup plan. This is used in case the body is being starved of food. Your liver will start to produce cholesterol to guarantee your body maintains a certain level of cholesterol. By eating a low-fat, high-carb diet, high levels of insulin are introduced and trigger the body to siphon off excess blood sugar into the liver to make cholesterol and triglycerides (which are used for energy and fat storage).
Rather then staying away from anything that has cholesterol in it, it is important to continue to eat foods that contain good cholesterol. Your liver makes 75% of the cholesterol your body needs. The remaining 25% comes from the foods that you eat. Carbs and sugar cannot take the place of cholesterol. If you do this, you place your health at risk because the liver will start to produce more cholesterol to make up for the lack of it. And your metabolism will go into famine mode. Until you start eating cholesterol again, your liver will continue to do this. Believe it or not, a low-cholesterol, high-carbohydrate diet can actually lead to high cholesterol!

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Diet to Reduce Cholesterol

Cholesterol is a fatty substance which is found in the blood. It is mainly made in the body. It plays a necessary role in the functioning of every cell in the body. However, too much cholesterol in the blood can increase your risk of heart problems. There are various things you can do to control your cholesterol levels. Cholesterol is carried around the body by proteins. These combinations of cholesterol and proteins are called lipoproteins. There are two main types of lipoproteins:

- LDL (low-density lipoprotein) is the harmful type of cholesterol.
- HDL (high-density lipoprotein) is a protective type of cholesterol.

Having excessive harmful cholesterol in your blood can augment your risk of getting cardiovascular diseases. The risk is particularly high if you have a high level of LDL cholesterol and a low level of HDL cholesterol. The cholesterol which is found in some foods such as eggs, liver, kidneys and some types of seafood like prawns, does not usually make a great contribution to the level of cholesterol in your blood. It is much more important that you eat foods that are low in saturated fat. However, some people have high blood cholesterol even though they eat a hale and hearty diet. For example, they may have inherited a condition called familial hyperlipidaemia (FH) which is usually genetic.

High cholesterol is probably one of the most modifiable risk factors when it comes to heart disease. The good news is that by making a few simple adjustments to your diet, you can help to lower your cholesterol. There are many ways to you can do this from following a cholesterol-lowering meal plan to adding in diet a few foods that aid in lowering cholesterol. There are a lot of ways to help make your diet lipid-friendly. A low cholesterol diet is not hard to follow, given the variety of foods available. Many food manufacturers also have low fat, low cholesterol foods available for people who do not have the time to fix elaborate meals. When you are shopping for such foods, be sure to look at the labels to follow the ingredients.

The following diet can help you in controlling your high cholesterol:
Fruits and Vegetables

Always consume loads of fruits and vegetables as they are low in calories and fat. Furthermore, these delicious groceries won’t raise your cholesterol levels.
Fats and Oils

Try to reduce your intake of saturated fats, since consuming foods with these fats could raise your cholesterol levels and place you at a higher threat of get hold of heart diseases. You should avoid any foods that state they contain partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, such as those used in many margarines and shortenings, contain a particular form of saturated fat known as Trans fats. These can raise blood cholesterol levels (including LDL, the bad cholesterol), just like saturated fat, and can also promote the formation of waxy, cholesterol plaques on your arteries. When cooking with oils, you should use olive and canola oils, which are particularly high in monounsaturated fats or vegetable oil, which is high in polyunsaturated fats. Unlike saturated and Trans fats, unsaturated fats can help lower your cholesterol and keep your heart healthy.
Breads and Grains

Use whole grain foods instead of foods containing white flour. Recent studies have indicated that ingesting high amounts of carbohydrates can also raise cholesterol levels and increase your risk of heart disease - especially if you have diabetes.
Dairy

Use low fat or skim dairy products instead of regular, full-fat ones. You'll find that not only does this diminish your risk for heart disease, but it is also responsive to your waistline as well.
Meats

Cook with lean meats, such as chicken, fish or turkey, instead of red meat. Leaner meats will not raise your cholesterol levels as much as red meat. For example, using ground turkey meat instead of ground beef is a delicious substitute. On fattier cuts of meat, make sure that you trim the fat off properly before consuming it.

List of edibles that help reducing your cholesterol:

   1. Whole grains and oats
   2. Blueberries
   3. Pistachios
   4. Walnuts
   5. Almonds
   6. Avocados
   7. Olives
   8. Flaxseed Oil
   9. Olive Oil
  10. Cranberry juice
  11. Fish and Fish Oil
  12. Black Soy-beans
  13. Pomegranate juice
  14. Vara churna – a herbal blend containing fibrous pulp of fruits of emblica officinalis, terminalia chebula and terminalia bellerica. It is also cleansing

 So go ahead with your cautious diet plan and control your cholesterol so that you just not avoid cardiovascular diseases, but also shape up your body.

Herbal Tea Works like a Herbal Medicine to Reduce Cholesterol

Green tea and cholesterol have a very deep relation. Green tea, a herbal and medicinal supplement have high sedative and beneficial values to turn your body into a desired one. Herbal teas can be made with fresh or dried flowers, leaves, seeds or roots, generally by pouring boiling water over the plant parts and letting them steamed for a few minutes. Seeds and roots can also be boiled on a stove. The tisane is then strained, sweetened if so desired, and served. Many companies produce herbal tea bags for such concoctions. On the other hand, flavoured teas are prepared by adding other plants to an actual tea (black, oolong, green, yellow, or white tea); for example, the popular Earl Grey tea is black tea with bergamot, jasmine tea is Chinese tea with jasmine flowers, and genmaicha is a Japanese green tea with toasted rice.

For the millions and millions of people suffering from high cholesterol green tea may be very light. Your one browse and search over the Internet for topics on green tea and cholesterol would make you land up with hundred of hits.

This new century is expected to become the century of medical miracles, the herbal green tea is one of those miracles according to various researches.

More good news is it's not just green tea and cholesterol; it's also green tea and cancer. Several studies have shown that the antioxidants are present in green tea. The Journal of the National Cancer Institute published the results of an epidemiological study indicating that drinking green tea reduced the risk of oesophageal cancer in Chinese men and women by nearly sixty percent. A study by the University of Kansas determined that EGCG may explain why the rate of heart disease among Japanese men is quite low, even though approximately seventy-five percent are smokers. Habitually drinking 5 to 10 cups a day of green tea also lowers high blood pressure along with the increasing cholesterol.

For more that 4,000 years now, the Chinese have known about the medicinal benefits of green tea since they are also using it to treat everything from headaches to depression.  Drinking green tea also is reported to be helpful with rheumatoid arthritis, Cardio-vascular disease, infection, and impaired immune function.

Green tea is rich in catechin polyphenols, especially epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). EGCG is a good anti-cancer element. Polyphenol limits the negative effects of smoking and a fatty diet; automatically reducing cholesterol thus. Herbal tea leaves are steamed, which prevents the EGCG compound from being oxidized while black and oolong tea leaves are made from dried or fermented leaves, which causes loss of EGCG.

Different kinds of herbal green tea available are:

- Anise tea, made from either the seeds or the leaves.
- Arjun Tea – made from bark of terminalia arjuna plant
- Artichoke tea.
- Roasted barley tea
- Bee Balm
- Boldo
- Cannabis tea
- Caraway tea
- Catnip tea
- Che Dang
- Cinnamon tea
- Coffee tea leaves and coffee cherry tea
- Cerasse, a bitter Jamaican herb.
- Chamomile tea is used as a sedative.