“You are what you eat!” as quoted from Dr Gillian McKeith has often been termed as the mantra for food lovers like you and me. However, is it necessarily true for all cases,or it is only a phrase we quote often to satisfy our own craving for food.

Low cholesterol meals such as those with huge servings of oats, barley added with a generous serving of soy protein, fruits and vegetables; are they really the concoction for a healthy cholesterol level?

Instead of drinking coffee each day, why not try 1 or 2 glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice? Especially if the juice contains plant sterols that have cholesterol lowering properties, it can actually promote lowered cholesterol levels in your body.

Not only do you get to enjoy the sweetness and the great taste of orange, you enjoy the benefits of lower cholesterol that it brings. However, if you are not an orange lover, other frit juices namely cranberry juice, grapefruit juice or grape juice would do fine.

Actually, any other citric fruit would actually bring the benefits of reduced cholesterol in our bodies! However, if you are such a coffee freak, another suggestion would be to use paper filters when brewing your favorite cup of coffee. These filters would ensure that substances that would cause high cholesterol would be not left inside your coffee.

Also, instead of using normal cooking oil, use olive oil generously during cooking or for salad dressings! Olive oil has been proven to contain lesser amounts of saturated fat that is one of the main causes of high cholesterol.

Besides using it for cooking purposes, people from Spain, Italy have regularly used olive oil in place of butter to spread on bread. Due to such a custom, is has resulted in these places having the least amount of heart disease cases in the whole of Europe.

Not forgetting seafood, it has been scientifically proven that mackerel, salmon and even sardines and many other kinds of fish contain huge amounts of omega 3 fatty acids. With the consumption of these fishes daily, we fulfill our body’s daily needed intake of omega 3 fatty acids that are also able to lower cholesterol levels to a healthy level.

From the various examples given above, we can see the obvious benefits that a low cholesterol meal can give us, but it is not necessarily true that just by having a healthy diet of low cholesterol products, we would have a healthy cholesterol level. Besides a good diet, we need to have a lifestyle of exercise and avoid vices such as smoking or excessive consumption of liquor.
Only when these conditions are met, one can have a lowered chance of having high cholesterol, but they are still not protected fully from the possibility of contracting diseases associated with high cholesterol

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Cholesterol in right quantities is a basic requirement for healthy living. Our liver produces the cholesterol from the fat in our diet. The more saturated fats we consume,the more cholesterol is produced by the liver and circulated through blood. Cholesterol is a blood borne fat compound essential in production of cell membranes,hormones and nerve fibers. Only when the amount of cholesterol in your blood gets high,it becomes harmful.

The optimum cholesterol level in our blood should be 5.20 milli moles per liter mmol/L in short. When we consume excess saturated fats,our liver produces excess cholesterol. Over a period of time,this excess cholesterol gets deposited in arteries and hardens. This hardened cholesterol deposit is called ‘atherosclerotic plaque’. This condition might lead to heart problems and stroke. Other cholesterol problems are diabetes and under performing thyroid.

The types of cholesterol are LDL and HDL . Among these, LDL type is harmful to health hence called bad cholesterol. HDL is called good cholesterol since it is not harmful to our health. When LDL levels are high in our blood we are more prone to heart problems. High level of HDL in our blood is in fact good for our health since it carries the cholesterol back to the liver where it is metabolized and removed from our body through excretion. The optimum level of LDL cholesterol should be less than 3.5 mmol/L. For HDL the optimum level should be 1 mmol/L or more. The total cholesterol level should be less than 5.2 mmol/L.

Diet control and exercise can reduce cholesterol level and if it does not help then there are drugs to control it. Devise a diet and workout plan suitable to your condition with the help of your physician and stick to it fully. Avoid high fat animal products such as red meat,whole milk dairy products,processed foods that contain saturated vegetable oils and food products that contain hydrogenated oils as these contain harmful trans fats. Consume low fat,high fiber foods and add lots of vegetables to your diet possibly in raw uncooked form such as carrot,beetroot,tomato ..etc..as salads. Add whole grains and fruits to your diet but do not overeat.

Exercise regularly and maintain a strict workout schedule depending upon your age and condition. Quit smoking. Reduce your stress level by finding a suitable stress reduction technique through yoga,meditation,tai chi since it was found that stress increases the lipid level in the blood.

Want to find out more about high cholesterol control , then visit Chandrasekaran Rajamani’s site to learn about cholesterol for your health needs.

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