Experts In Health

Six Ways To Lower Your Cholesterol Without Drugs

Introduction

So your doctor says you need to lower your cholesterol. Maybe you have high cholesterol, or just sticky cholesterol. Either way, you’re not happy, especially since the prospect of taking prescription medicine for the problem is fraught with uncertainty. Drugs, after all, have a lot of potential side effects.

So what to do now? The first thing to look at is your lifestyle. Your lifestyle includes your diet, how active you are, and how overweight you may be. Depending upon your current habits, lifestyle changes may be just minor tweaks or massive overhauls. Obviously, tweaking will be quite a bit easier than massive changes. For an overhaul to work, you need to create goals, and then state them publicly, telling people you respect about your intentions. This works well because you wouldn’t want to let your family, friends, and business associates down would you?

Healthy Diet

The first thing to address is diet. Most experts agree that a heart-healthy diet is high in vegetables and whole grains and low in animal fats and as low as possible in man-made trans-fats like hydrogenated vegetable shortening. A step further would be to eliminate all forms of canola oil and also all vegetable oils that are heat treated during processing. To find vegetable oils that are not heat treated, look on the label for the words “expeller pressed.” And even easier – just use extra virgin olive oil in things like salad dressing and low-heat sautes (avoid burning the olive oil) and use cold-pressed extra virgin coconut oil when frying. In addition to these dietary rules, you should also reduce your intake of processed flour, sugar, and other high glycemic foods. Some research implicates high glycemic foods as a factor in blood cholesterol levels.

Target Your Ideal Body Weight

The next topic to address is body weight. Sorry, but if you are significantly overweight for your height and body frame, reducing cholesterol without drugs is going to be difficult. But reality is, if you can change your dietary habits to reflect the dietary lifeestyle described above, weight loss will come naturally. You can stuff yourself with green leafy vegetables, beans, and other low-carbohydrate vegetables and still lose weight rather quickly. Mediterranean style cookbooks and Indian style cookbooks are great sources for tasty, healthy, vegetarian dishes. A word of warning about Indian cooking though – you need to leave out the cream and butter from their recipes. If you find taste lacking, try substituting extra virgin olive oil or cold-pressed extra virgin coconut oil.

Exercise Regularly

Regular exercise is one more weapon in the attack on high cholesterol. Experts disagree on how much is enough, but the consensus seems to be that about 30 minutes of daily exercise is best. A good routine would be aerobic exercise four times a week, like a brisk walk, and resistance exercise three times a week. Some people struggle finding time to exercise while others seem always able to work it into their schedule. While lacking the desire to exercise may be a major stumbling block for some, having unhealthy levels of cholesterol should be a big motivating factor. Plus regular exercise makes your body feel better and improves your mental outlook and clarity. Remember, even the President of the United States maintains a regular exercise schedule. Surely you can find the time as well. Make it a goal to do it for 21 days straight and it should become habit. In fact, you’ll probably miss it and feel blah if your start skipping. If you haven’t exercised in a while, it’s a good idea to start out slow and maybe get some input from your doctor.

The next three things you can do to lower your cholesterol involve taking supplements – easy compared to the three items above. But your success with supplements could be limited if you don’t address what’s already been discussed.

Take Nutrim ®, A Natural Oat Superfood

The first supplement on the list is a superfood made from 100% natural oats called Nutrim ®. It can lower you cholesterol by over 10%, sometimes much more, within 60 days. Nutrim ® is made by mechanically liberating from oats a special dietary compound that lowers cholesterol. The compound is called beta-glucan and the body normally has a hard time getting at the material because it is typically bound up in the tough fibers of oats.

Over three decades of study show oat beta-glucan lowers blood cholesterol levels, especially LDL. Nutrim ® falls under the FDA category of GRAS (generally recognized as safe). There are no side effects.

A little background could be useful here. The body gets its cholesterol from food and it also makes it on its own in the liver. Blood cholesterol levels are primarily controlled by an equilibrium that exists across the body’s intestinal wall. If you remove cholesterol from the digestive tract, your blood cholesterol levels fall. That’s why Nutrim ® works. The beta-glucans bind to cholesterol in the intestines and it gets transported out of the body before being absorbed by the blood.

Nutrim ® is a tasteless powder that mixes well in foods and beverages and it also comes as a chewable tablet. Some people see lower cholesterol with just one serving (7.5 grams) a day while others see the need for eight servings a day, but most see results with just two servings a day. It is made in the USA from North-American grown non-GMO oats.

Nutrim ® is available online from the website https://www.hearthealthysolution.com.

Consider Red Yeast Rice

Another easy supplement that can knock quite a few percentage points off your total cholesterol and your LDL levels is red yeast rice. But you should consult with your doctor before taking it, and there are warnings on the label for pregnant mothers (they should not take it) and people with liver disease. The suggested daily dose is 1,200 mg to 2,400 mg daily. Red yeast rice is a traditional Chinese medicine that is extracted from rice that’s been fermented with a type of yeast called Monascus purpureus. It’s been used in China and other Asian countries for centuries, but even so it’s hard to make firm statements about its safety because the ingredients of different brands of red yeast rice extract vary considerably. The active substance in red yeast rice is monacolin K, also known as lovastatin, the active ingredient in the prescription drug Mevacor. There are known side effects with the drug Mevacor and a variety of label warnings.

Take Fish Oil

The last supplement on the list is fish oil, usually taken in pill form. Fish oil is high in omega-3 fatty acids and can have a dramatic impact on triglyceride levels. A handy overview on cholesterol should keep things clear. In general you want low LDL levels (the bad cholesterol), low VLDI levels (another low density cholesterol), and higher HDL levels (the good cholesterol). The VLDI’s contain triglycerides. So lower your triglycerides and you lower your VLDI levels.

A good balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in your diet can also help increase your HDL to LDL ratio. Many Americans consume much too much omega-6 and too little omega-3. Omega-6 is typically found in foods fried in commercial vegetable oils. Peanut butter and chicken are other major sources. Extra virgin olive and coconut oils are low in omega 6. In general, you want to keep the ratio of omega-6 to omega -3 in your diet at around 2 to 1.

The typical recommendation for lowering triglyceride levels is to take 2,000 to 4,000 mg fish oil daily. One word of warning – do some research on the quality of the fish oil you plan to buy. Some brands come contaminated with unhealthy levels of mercury. In general, fish oil from small fish that live in colder water has less chance of mercury contamination. It’s always a good idea to check with your doctor before starting on new supplements.

Last Words On Lowering Cholesterol Without Drugs

The six points covered in this report will not help without action on your part. Consult with your physician and with his blessing, move forward with a plan of action. Most people should be able to lower their cholesterol to healthy levels using these methods. Some may need to start with prescription drugs while pursuing their plan, but eventually most will be able to reduce and eventually eliminate their need for drugs. Get going and good luck!