How To Lower Your Cholesterol
By Kathryn Soloff

Everybody talks about cholesterol. Do you really know what it is (besides
being bad for you)?

Well, cholesterol is a soft, waxy substance. It is found in all of the parts of
your body. Your body makes cholesterol. Cholesterol also comes from the
food that we eat.

The truth is that you need cholesterol in order for your system to work.
However, too much cholesterol, or the wrong type of cholesterol clogs
your arteries. This, naturally, leads to heart disease.

One of the functions of cholesterol is that it aids the body to produce
the following: hormones, vitamin D and also, bile acid. It circulates
through the blood to be used by your entire system.

In your food, cholesterol can be found in eggs, dairy, and both meat and
poultry. Eggs and organ meats are especially high in cholesterol. As a
rule there is less to be found in fish. However, some shellfish is also high
in cholesterol.

Vegetable quality foods such as grains, beans, nuts, seeds, vegetables and
fruit do not contain cholesterol.

Believe it or not, the fat content of a particular food is not an adequate measure
of its cholesterol content. Liver is low in fat but is high in cholesterol.

A simple rule of thumb is that as your level of cholesterol goes up, the risk of
developing atherosclerosis and/or heart problems increases significantly.

A scary statistic is that more than half of the adults have cholesterol levels that
are higher than they should be. It is not uncommon for high cholesterol to begin
in childhood. It is believed that some children are at higher risk because of
family history. This is only partly true. What is more true is that we pass our
eating habits onto our children, thus increasing the chance of having high
cholesterol levels.

In order to lower our cholesterol levels to a healthy level, there are some lifestyle
changes that we can adopt.

1/ Change your diet. Eat more grains and vegetable quality foods. Especially
include more fiber in your diet.

Many people find that changing their diet is not enough. This is when the doctor
prescribes medication to help.

I do not believe that this is true. What is happening is that these people are
not changing their diets enough. Having high cholesterol does not happen all
by itself. It is the result of what we eat and our lifestyle.

Exercise is equally important. When you exercise, you increase your energy
requirements. This will dramatically help to lower your cholesterol.

Finally, if that is not enough, you can try using Chinese herbs. The Chinese
have been using herbs successfully for thousands of years.

Chinese herbs are, compared to conventional medicine, very mild, safe and
effective. They can assist you in the transition from an unhealthy lifestyle
to a healthy one.

Whatever course of action that you decide on, do it now. High cholesterol
is a serious health risk without any apparent outward symptoms. It is crucial
to take the necessary steps to eliminate this health risk.

Learn How To Lower Your Cholesterol .

Kathryn Soloff is the co-publisher of http://cholest-pure.com where she provides additional advice, tips and hard to find information on How To Lower Your Cholesterol Naturally.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kathryn_Soloff
http://EzineArticles.com/?How-To-Lower-Your-Cholesterol&id=1037525

Bookmark to:

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 9:04 pm and is filed under lower your cholesterol. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.