Controlling Your Cholesterol with Diet
Statin drugs that lower cholesterol are commonly prescribed.
While they are normally safe, they can cause side-effects such as
liver damage, diarrhea, and muscle pain in up to 10% of users.
These drugs are also expensive and must be taken throughout the
patient's life.
These means that statins should only be prescribed when cholesterol
is high enough to cause heart disease or when other risk factors are
also present.
The statins may be useful in some cases, but many people can actually
lower their cholesterol by simply changing their diet and exercising.
There are many foods that help lower cholesterol.
Try to keep your saturated fat intake down to 10% of your total
caloric intake. These are foods such as butter and meats. Be
careful not to go "low-fat". This can also reduce your good
cholesterol along with the bad.
You will need to eat foods that keep the body from absorbing the fat
you do eat and thus, it is flushed from the body.
These functional foods include foods rich in soluble fiber such as
fruit, grains and legumes. The fiber dissolves and forms into a
gel inside the intestines which grabs the cholesterol molecules and
stops them from being absorbed. You can lower your cholesterol by
as much as 8% by simply eating more fiber.
Foods that are high in fiber include: fish, fish oil supplements, oat
bran, psyllium, and rice bran.
Vitamin C, vitamin E, niacin and certain antioxidants can reduce the
risk of heart attack by reducing oxidation, thus the bad (LDL)
cholesterol can't adhere to the walls of the arteries.
Exercise raises your good (HDL) cholesterol. Walking and weight
training are excellent choices.
And, as bad as you like to hear it, losing weight can reduce your
cholesterol by approximately 5% for each 5-10 pounds of weight you lose.
If you still need to take a statin to keep your cholesterol down, you
may need a lower dosage with a lower risk of side-effects. |
