How To Lower Cholesterol

Once inside the cells, it is deposited in all our organs. A study published in 1998 showed that our cells absorb lycopene better from processed tomato products than from fresh tomatoes. Process the tomatoes with heat. An example would be tomato sauce, tomato paste, or tomato soup. Eat fresh tomatoes with fats such as olive oil. Eat products that contain lycopene with other food antioxidants.

Home cooked, unprocessed, low in saturated fat - it’s the key to a natural cure for high cholesterol. Use the foods described below as often as you can, combine them to produce recipes that fight back at hard arteries and plaque build-up. Just by making a few simple changes to your diet you can immediately begin to lower your cholesterol levels. Remember, eating foods that contain unsaturated fat rather than saturated fat can actually help to reduce cholesterol levels.

The men were followed for five weeks, eating a typical Western diet high in fat, carbohydrates, refined sugars, and red meat. For the following five weeks, they ate a Mediterranean diet high in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and low in red meat. The Mediterranean diet also includes red wine and olive oil. Adhering to the Mediterranean diet resulted in a nine percent reduction of LDL cholesterol, along with decreased blood concentration of the protein part of the lipoprotein.

While these Mediterranean ingredients individually offer some protection against high cholesterol, it is thought that when combined (in soups, stews or sauces for example) the effects are more pronounced. The high soluble fiber content and antioxidants in these recipes make them highly effective cholesterol lowering foods. If you pick the right ingredients you can produce some wonderful meals using cholesterol lowering foods.

But if there is too much LDL and not enough HDL (high density lipoprotein) - also popularly known as the “good cholesterol” which lowers levels of LDL - then LDL can become oxidized. And oxidized LDL causes inflammation in the arteries and a build up of plaque. It is this plaque in the arteries that causes them to become blocked - and blocked arteries are the major cause of heart attacks and strokes. It has long been established that eating a balanced diet containing foods that lower cholesterol combined with regular exercise, will help to lower cholesterol levels.

Otherwise, both diets had similar calorie content and differed mainly in the amount of dietary fiber, salt content, and fat quality, wrote the researchers. All the participants were instructed to maintain their normal patterns of physical activity, smoking, and drinking throughout the study period. They also had less harmful fat particles circulating in their blood, said Lieselotte Cloetens of Lund University, a biomedical nutrition researcher who was involved in the study.

Beans were consumed as a main course, and this is really the easiest and best way to get the beans in your diet without feeling lie it is a chore. A basic way would be to roast them or boil them and cook them with tomato, drizzle some olive and accompany with a piece of cheese. You can also try a few recipes that I have shared here, here and here.

Last century, cardiac specialists noted a link between what is popularly known as the Mediterranean diet and lower instances of heart disease. Now further research and study proved a scientific link. Foods that lower cholesterol are eaten in greater quantities by people living around the Mediterranean rim than they are in the USA. In the Mediterranean areas of France and Greece, for example, rates of heart attacks compared with the US are considerably lower.

The aim of the study was to see how well a diet low in fat and high in fiber could control blood cholesterol levels. People in Mediterranean countries ate a diet of this sort at the turn of the 20th century. Study participants were 31 men with mildly elevated blood cholesterol levels.

Many times the change doesn’t have to be drastic, more often it’s adding foods to your diet rather than removing foods from your diet. So how does one eat ¾ cup of beans? Some recommendations I saw in the media recommend hummus, or adding beans into salads or quesadillas, but let’s be realistic: how much hummus are you going to eat in one sitting?

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