Lower Cholesterol Through Diet
You Don’t Have to Be a Geek to Lower Cholesterol Through Diet
Guest post by Deborah H Land of CholesterolLoweringDiets.net
a. Cholesterol Myths – both Good and Bad
There are actually two types of cholesterol, which is not a known fact for people who misconstrue it as something bad. HDL is the name of the good cholesterol, while the bad one is called LDL. A bloodstream with too much LDL will result in plaques in the arteries. Over time, blood will have a difficult time travelling your arteries because the opening becomes narrow thanks to the amount of bad cholesterol in it. Read more
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Multi-Grain Vs Whole-Grain
by Shereen Jegtvig
I think a lot of people are aware of the importance of dietary fiber for good health. Fiber keeps your digestive system functioning properly and keep you feeling full a bit longer. Some types of fiber also help to keep your cholesterol in check, like the fiber found in oats. All of the fiber in your diet comes from plants and the most important sources are fruits, vegetables and whole grains.
Whole-grains are a good source of fiber because they still contain their outer coverings, whereas refined grains such as white bread and pasta have had the outer coverings removed. While many people still prefer the flavor and texture of refined grain products, whole-grain foods are becoming more popular. Food manufacturers know this so they often use the labels to proclaim the goodness of whole-grains.
That’s fine (and better if 100% whole-grain), but don’t confuse multi-grain for whole grain. Multi-grain just means more than one type of grain was used in the product. Those multi-grains could still be refined, or even mostly made from plain old white flour with a little bit of whole grain flour tossed in. Read more
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Partially Hydrogenated Fats and Trans-Fats
by Shereen Jegtvig
When you look on the ingredients lists of your packaged foods, you may see ‘partially hydrogenated oil’ lurking there. Hydrogenation involves forcing hydrogen molecules into the polyunsaturated fat molecules of liquid oil. The addition of the hydrogen molecules changes the chemical structure of the fats and turns the liquid oil into a more solid shape (think about stick margarine). These fats are called trans-fats.
That’s a bad thing because partially trans-fats are worse for you than saturated fats. Trans fats raise LDL cholesterol (the bad kind), which is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Eating too many of these artificially created trans-fats clogs your arteries and increases inflammation.
It’s so bad, that food manufacturers are required by the United States Food and Drug Administration to indicate how many grams of trans-fat are contained in each serving of their products. And New York City has banned the use of trans-fats in local restaurants. Read more
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Cholesterol and Your Diet
by Shereen Jegtvig
Cholesterol is a waxy type of fat found in your body, and although many people think of cholesterol as a bad thing, it isn’t. In fact, your body needs cholesterol to produce hormones, vitamin D and bile, plus cholesterol protects your nerves and is a major component in the structure of cells. The problem occurs when your body has too much bad cholesterol (called low density lipoproteins) in your bloodstream and not enough good cholesterol (high density lipoproteins) (http://www.webmd.com/cholesterol-management/tc/high-cholesterol-overview). The cholesterol can stick to blood vessel walls, so having increased levels of cholesterol (especially LDL) can directly increase your risk of cardiovascular disease, increasing the liklihood of heart attacks and/or stroke.
Most of the cholesterol your body needs is made by your liver, but some of the cholesterol comes from the animal based foods you eat (foods from plants don’t have cholesterol – they have sterols that can actually lower your cholesterol – more on that later). It would be nice if lowering the cholesterol levels in your body was as easy as just cutting out cholesterol, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. Two other types of fats have a bigger impact on your cholesterol levels than the cholesterol you eat – saturated fats and trans fats. Read more
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Too Much Saturated Fat Is Bad for You
by Shereen Jegtvig
Saturated fat is found mostly in animal products (beef, lamb, pork, lard, butter, cream, whole milk and high fat cheese) and some plant sources like coconut oil, cocoa butter, palm oil and palm kernel oil. Saturated fat is fairly solid at room temperature (think of butter or the fat you see in a raw marbled steak. Eating too much saturated fat increases the amount of cholesterol in your blood (much more so than consuming high cholesterol foods) and research shows diets in saturated fat increase inflammatory conditions in the arteries.
Many years of research has resulted in the American Heart Association and other expert groups, including the School of Public Health at Harvard to recommend limiting the amount of saturated fats in your diet. This doesn’t mean you can never eat red meat or cheese again, just watch your portion sizes and add variety to your diet with poultry, fish and seafood, and vegetarian dishes. Replace butter with heart-healthy oils like olive and canola oil, and buy non- or low-fat dairy products. Limit your daily saturated fat intake to less than 10% of your daily calorie intake (less than 20 grams for most of us). Read more
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