Nutrition Tricks.com

Cholesterol and decreasing your risk of heart disease are linked increasingly more today as people become more aware of a connection between the {blood cholesterol level} and the risk for heart attack, stroke, or other cardiac condition.

LDL cholesterol is labeled the “bad cholesterol“, because higher levels of it in your blood stream have been associated with an increased risk for coronary heart disease. When diet, exercise and healthy living is not enough to lower the LDL numbers or elevate the HDL numbers it may be time to take the bull by the horns and make some medical decisions. Some of us shy away from drugs simply because of the side effects that in some cases can accompany them. Other people prefer not to have to suffer the cost of prescription medications. Your general practitioner can offer you guidance on the next step in the quest to control your cholesterol and enjoy a longer and healthier life.

If you want to lower the bad cholesterol and elevate the good cholesterol it is very important to understand what can determine the levels in your bloodstream. Your liver produces and also secretes into your bloodstream LDL cholesterol. Your blood also removes the LDL from your bloodstream. When you have a deficiency of LDL receptors you will have high LDL levels.

Heredity and eating habits can play a crucial role with regards to an individuals LDL level, your HDL level and your total cholesterol level. Individuals with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) have a reduced number of or even nonexistent LDL receptors on the surface of their liver cells. Some of these people can also tend to develop coronary artery disease as well as to get heart attacks during their early adulthood. These individuals can raise the level of LDL in their blood by increasing the other way we get LDL in the blood, which is through dietary cholesterol. Diets which are high in saturated fats and cholesterol can tend to elevate the blood LDL level. You get saturated fats from meat and dairy products. Some vegetable oils – made from cocoa, palm, or coconut oils – also tend to be high in saturated fats.

Presently, lowering LDL cholesterol is the leading emphasis of the medical community in the fight to prevent cardiac disease and strokes. This is why doctors and nutritionists focus on diet. The medical community has demonstrated its belief that there are numerous benefits to decreasing the LDL cholesterol including:

• Preventing or cutting down the creation of fresh cholesterol plaques in the walls of the arteries leading to the heart and brain
• Lowering the plaque that has already formed on the artery walls
• Having the capacity to to widen the arteries that currently are already restricted to improve blood flow
• Prevent blood clot formation by preventing the rupture of cholesterol plaques.
• Decrease the risk for heart attack and for stroke and help the carotid and cerebral arteries that lead to the brain by slowing the creation of atherosclerosis in these arteries.