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Lowering Your Cholesterol
Cholesterol Herbal Remedies
Unfortunately, the medical community is quick to prescribe another expensive medication to
lower cholesterol but they are far less likely to suggest herbal or homeopathic measures.
Along with getting plenty of fiber there are foods that will help in promoting the lowering
of cholesterol as well as herbs that can further reduce cholesterol.
Foods containing pectin are advantageous to lowering cholesterol levels. Carrots, apples
and the white layer inside of citrus rinds are particularly beneficial.
Avocado, which is very high in fat, has unexpectedly become a cholesterol reducer. A study
of women who were given a choice of a high monounsaturated fats (olive oil) along with
avocado diet or a complex carbohydrate consisting of starches and sugars reported interesting
results. In six weeks, the former group on the olive oil and avocado diet showed an
8.2 percent reduction in cholesterol.
Beans. Gotta love 'em. They are high in fiber and low in cholesterol. What more could you
ask for! A cup and a half of beans, or the amount in a bowl of soup, can lower total
cholesterol levels by as much as 19 percent!
Garlic. We discussed garlic earlier but it is well worth repeating here. Use it liberally
in your diet. Not only will it help to lower your cholesterol it is also credited with
lowering blood pressure. Be sure you include generous amounts of garlic as well as onions
in your daily diet.
Cayenne pepper (Capsicum minimum) and other plants that contain the phenolic compound
capsaicin have a well demonstrated effect in lowering blood cholesterol levels, as does the
widely used spice Fenugreek.
Caraway is another aromatic spice with demonstrable cholesterol lowering properties.
A whole range of Asian herbal remedies new to western medicine are proving to be valuable in
this field.
Remember when the "low-fat" mantra began? We all jumped in with both feet and some of us
still live on low fat foods, like having a baked potato but no butter or sour cream.
Maybe you eat pasta, veggies and fat free desserts. So how come you still gain weight?
Good question. Researchers from the National Center for Health Statistics studied the eating
habits of 8.260 adult Americans between 1988 and 1991. They found that Americans have
significantly reduced their fat intake but still packed on extra pounds in recent years.
In fact, a national health and nutrition survey of over 8,000 American adults concludes that
one third of the population is overweight.
The answer is very simple and right in front of us. So many of us jumped on the low fat diet
and assumed that if it's low fat it can't make us fat. Right? Wrong. We were so involved
with the low fat concept that we forgot to count calories!
If you are eating more calories that your body needs, whether from fat or carbohydrates,
the body will store them as fat. Period. According to an National Institutes of Health
study, by 1990 the average American was consuming hundreds more calories a day than
he was consuming 10 years before.
There are researchers who believe that eating small amounts of fat can keep you from
overindulging on total calories. Ohio State University nutrition scientist John
Allred points out that dietary fat causes our bodies to produce a hormone that tells
our intestines to slow down the emptying process. We feel full and are less likely
to overeat.
Add a little bit of peanut butter to your piece of fruit and it can help to keep you from
a binge later.
Here is another trap to avoid. Reducing fat might not be as smart as it sounds. Tufts
University scientists recently put 11 middle-aged men and women volunteers on a variety
of average reduced and low fat diets.
The results were astounding. Very low fat diets which provided only 15 percent of fat from
calories did have a positive effect on blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels. By the
way, that diet is so strict there is no way it could be duplicated in real life. But a
reduced fat diet, which is more realistic, only affected those levels if accompanied by
weight loss.
Not only that, they concluded that cutting fat without losing weight actually increased
triglyceride levels and decreased HDL!
So while excess fat is not healthy, it isn't a dirty word either. Without some fat in our
diets, our bodies could not make nerve cells and hormones or absorb fat soluble vitamins.
If obesity is one of your high cholesterol causes, try losing a pound a week with a
500 calorie solution. No, we aren't going to ask you to only eat 500 calories a week!
What you can do is easily lose a pound a week just by cutting 500 calories a day out of
your diet. You can easily burn 250 of them just be spending about 30 minutes of aerobic
exercise, like bicycling, dancing or just walking. To get rid of the other 250 try cutting
out mayonnaise, doughnuts and alcohol.
If there were no other reason to take control of cholesterol, here's one that certainly has
merit.
A recent study found that men with high cholesterol are twice as likely to be impotent as
men whose cholesterol levels are normal or low.
Researchers recorded cholesterol levels of 3,250 healthy men between the ages of 25 and 83.
Men with total cholesterol higher than 240 milligrams/dl were twice as likely to have trouble
achieving or maintaining an erection than men who cholesterol levels were below 180
milligrams/dl.
Men who had low levels of HDL were also twice as likely to suffer from impotence. The
same high-fat diet that narrows arteries and blocks blood flow to your heart also narrows
the arteries that carry blood to your penis. Blood has to be able to get to your penis in
order for you to have an erection. Take control now and you'll find yourself improving in
this area of your life as well.
The typical American diet consists of fatty meats, processed cold cuts, dairy products and
fried foods. As if that weren't enough, throw in commercially baked breads, roles, cakes,
chips and cookies. This is a surefire path to high cholesterol.
Oddly, ingesting cholesterol will not raise the blood cholesterol nearly as much as eating
a type of fat called "saturated fat." Like cholesterol, saturated fat is primarily found
in animal products like cheese, butter, cream, whole milk, ice cream, lard and marbled meats.
Don't believe that if you just change to vegetable oil you can eliminate the problem.
Some vegetable oils are also high in saturated fat. Palm oil, palm kernel oil, coconut oil
and cocoa butter are also very high in saturated fat. Unfortunately, these are also most
often used in commercially baked goods, coffee creams and nondairy whipped toppings, so make
sure you read labels.
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