How To Lower Ldl Cholesterol And Triglycerides

What Is The Conventional Treatment Of High Cholesterol

Treatment of high cholesterol usually begins with lifestyle changes geared toward bringing levels down. These include losing weight if youre overweight, and changing your diet to emphasize vegetables and fruits, fish, particularly cold water fish such as wild Alaskan salmon, mackerel, herring and black cod that provide heart healthy omega-3 fatty acids. If lifestyle changes dont help or if youre unable to make the changes your doctor recommends, cholesterol-lowering drugs may be prescribed. These include statins, which effectively lower LDL cholesterol bile acid sequestrants that may be prescribed along with statins to lower LDL nicotinic acid to lower LDL cholesterol and triglycerides and raise HDL drugs called fibrates that may be prescribed to lower cholesterol and may raise HDL and a drug called Ezetimibe to lower LDL by blocking the absorption of cholesterol in the intestine.

How To Lower Your Cholesterol And Triglycerides Levels With No Medications

Heart disease becomes very common when it comes to aging. But getting one in young age is a thing no one wants to happen. Still, there are diseases that cause this and there are ways to prevent them. One of these diseases is a lipid disorder, the one that happens when you have high blood levels of Low Density Lipoprotein cholesterol or fats that are called Triglycerides, or both. Lets see how to deal with it and how to lower triglycerides and cholesterol levels.

Can You Lower Cholesterol Without Medication

There are ways to manage high cholesterol, and the wonderful news is that heart disease is 90% preventable, Dr. Cho says. Even if you have a significant family history of high cholesterol, you can prevent heart disease.

If you have coronary artery disease or carotid artery disease, your doctor may recommend that you pair healthy lifestyle habits with cholesterol-lowering medications, which can work wonders.

But nearly everyone can benefit from learning about healthy lifestyle choices that can lower cholesterol the natural way, including diet, exercise and stress management. Dr. Cho outlines the best ways to lower your cholesterol and reduce your risk of heart disease.

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How Can Levels Of Hdl Cholesterol Be Increased

• The first step in increasing HDL cholesterol levels is by implementing and maintaining therapeutic life style changes.
• Regular aerobic exercise, loss of excess weight , and smoking cessation will increase HDL cholesterol levels.
• Regular alcohol consumption in moderation will also raise HDL cholesterol. Because of other adverse health consequences of excessive alcohol consumption, alcohol is not recommended as a standard treatment for low HDL cholesterol.

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Exercise For 30 Minutes At Least 5 Days A Week

Moderate activity boosts your HDL cholesterol levels. HDL cholesterol picks up excess LDL cholesterol in your bloodstream and moves it out of your body. Activities such as a brisk walk, swimming, or biking are considered moderateâyou might be breaking a sweat, but you can still carry on a conversation. If youre getting into more vigorous activity, you dont need to exercise as much to get the same benefitsâabout 20 minutes 3 times a week.XTrustworthy SourceMayo ClinicEducational website from one of the worlds leading hospitalsGo to source

Exercise doesnt have to mean going to the gym. Find an activity you enjoy and get a friend to do it with you. That way, itll seem less like work and more like fun!

Always talk to your doctor before starting a new exercise program. Theyll let you know if youre healthy enough to do what you want and can recommend activities to get you started.

Stay active during your daily life as well. For example, you might take the stairs instead of the elevator. Youll boost your metabolism, which jumpstarts many positive changes in your health.

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Avoid Refined Sugars And Grains

Whole grains are another good source of fiber. Instead of refined flour and white rice, try whole-wheat flour and brown or wild rice. Old-fashioned oatmeal is also a good choice, but not the quick-cooking versions, which have had much of the fiber processed out.

And don’t substitute sugar for fat. “It’s one of the worst choices you can make,” McManus warns. Food manufacturers may boost the sugar content of low-fat salad dressings and sauces to add flavor. If you see sugar, corn syrup, or any word ending in “ose” near the top of the list of ingredients, choose a higher-fat version without trans fats instead.

Healthy Eating Tips To Lower Cholesterol

As well as sticking to a varied and healthy diet, try these tips to help you manage your cholesterol:

• Limit takeaway foods to once a week .
• Limit salty, fatty and sugary snack foods to once a week .
• Eat plenty of vegetables aim for 5 serves of vegetables every day. .
• Choose wholegrain breads, cereal, pasta, rice and noodles.
• Snack on plain, unsalted nuts and fresh fruit .
• Include legumes such as chickpeas, lentils, split peas), beans into at least two meals a week. Check food labels and choose the lowest sodium products.
• Use spreads and margarines made from healthy unsaturated fats instead of those made with saturated fat .
• Use healthy oils for cooking some include canola, sunflower, soybean, olive , sesame and peanut oils.
• Use salad dressings and mayonnaise made from oils such as canola, sunflower, soybean, olive , sesame and peanut oils.
• Include 2 or 3 serves of plant-sterol-enriched foods every day .
• Have 2 to 3 portions of oily fish every week. Fish may be fresh, frozen or canned.
• Include up to 7 eggs every week.
• Select lean meat and limit unprocessed red meat to less than 350g per week.
• Choose reduced fat, no added sugar milk, yoghurt, or calcium-added non-dairy food and drinks.
• Limit or avoid processed meats including sausages and deli meats .

If you are having trouble with your cholesterol levels, a dietitian can help you to eat healthily for your specific needs.

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Some People May Respond Best To A Low

For those with severely elevated triglycerides , there is a case for low-fat diets being equally good if not better than low carb in some situations.

One study finds that those with triglycerides below 400 mg/dL respond best to low-carb diets, but those with triglycerides greater than 400 mg/dL respond best to low-fat diets.24

However, case reports document a decrease in severely elevated triglycerides with low-carb, high-fat diets.25

Its important to understand the cause of elevated triglycerides, as that may impact the proposed dietary treatment. If someone has a genetic cause, such as familial chylomicronemia or lipoprotein lipase deficiency, a low-fat diet may be more effective.26

Aside from these extreme examples, there is no evidence to support a low-fat diet as being better than a low-carb diet for reducing elevated triglycerides.

Ways To Lower Your Cholesterol Without Medication

Cholesterol is a waxy substance in your blood and is also found in certain foods. Ideally, your total cholesterol levels will fall under 200 milligrams per deciliter . Your LDL, or bad cholesterol, levels should fall under 100 mg/dL. And your HDL, or good cholesterol, should stay at 40 mg/dL or higher. If you have high cholesterol levels, changing your lifestyle can go a long way.

Dr. Javier Sosa and our team at Woodlands Primary Healthcare provide blood tests to help identify cholesterol-related risk factors. We can also make lifestyle recommendations that suit your specific needs.

Here are nine ways you can lower your cholesterol levels without medication:

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How To Lower A1c With Type 1 Diabetes

Regina made some drastic changes to her diet and saw immediate results. She changed from eating about 50 grams of carbohydrate per day to eating upwards of 400 grams of carbohydrate per day and reduced her insulin use from 15 to 13 units per day.

At her next doctors visit, Reginaâs A1c decreased from 12.3% to 5.3%, while eating more carbohydrate energy. In addition, her total cholesterol dropped from 215 mg/dL to 124 mg/dL and her blood pressure decreased from 150/90 mmHg to 120/70 mmHg.

Take a look at her blood work between 2017 and 2018 to see how her nutrition habits affected her overall health:

Biomarker
150/90	120/70

Regina stays physically active and on-the-go as both a teacher and a coach, but by following a low-fat, plant-based, whole-food diet she says she doesnt even feel like she has a disease.

Regina is truly an example of how to lower A1c using a simple approach that has been backed by more than 85 years of evidence-based science.

Her story shows just how easy it is to feel great eating a low-fat, plant-based, whole-food diet living with type 1 diabetes, and verify that this lifestyle works after receiving excellent laboratory blood work.

Best of all, Regina has a progressive mentality that is sure to keep her incredibly healthy for years to come. She finally understands how to lower A1c using a low-fat, plant-based diet and minimize her risk for chronic diseases in the long-term a powerful gift she wish she had learned many years ago.

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Putting It All Together

Improving triglyceride levels is simple. From a dietary perspective, all you have to do is two things: eat fewer carbs and eat more marine-derived omega 3s.

The best way to do this is by implementing a Mediterranean-style ketogenic diet. To follow this diet correctly, you must:

• Restrict carbohydrate
• Eat plenty of nuts, olives/olive oil, low-carb vegetables, and fatty fish like sardines and salmon

To enhance your results, you can also:

• Restrict calories to lose weight
• Implement a sleep schedule and improve sleep quality
• Exercise for at least 30 minutes a day
• Supplement with marine-derived omega 3s, curcumin, niacin, and/or garlic extract
• Eat more MCTs from coconut oil or an MCT oil supplement
• Avoid alcohol, trans fats, and added sugar

However, even if you implement these triglyceride lowering suggestions flawlessly, you will only know if they worked by getting a blood test.

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Replace Saturated Fats With Healthier Fats

Replacing foods that contain mainly saturated fats with foods that contain unsaturated fats such as polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats will help reduce your cholesterol level.

For example, instead of butter and cream in cooking, use olive oil, nut butters or avocado.

Healthy unsaturated fats are found in:

• fruits and vegetables

Making Diet And Lifestyle Changes

1Lose weight. If youre overweight, talk with your doctor about safely losing weight.XExpert SourcePouya Shafipour, MD, MSWeight Loss SpecialistExpert Interview. 8 May 2020. Your doctor or nutritionist can work with you to create a personalized weight loss plan. Even a small amount of weight loss can help to raise your HDL levels.XTrustworthy SourceMayo ClinicEducational website from one of the worlds leading hospitalsGo to source

2Pouya Shafipour, MD, MSWeight Loss SpecialistExpert Interview. 8 May 2020. Complex carbohydrates offer more fiber, which can increase your HDL while lowering LDL and triglycerides. Complex carbohydrates also take longer for your body to process, so youll feel fuller longer. This may help you lose weight as well. To include complex carbohydrates, choose:XTrustworthy SourceMayo ClinicEducational website from one of the worlds leading hospitalsGo to sourceXTrustworthy SourceAmerican Heart AssociationLeading nonprofit that funds medical research and public educationGo to sourceXTrustworthy SourcePubMed CentralJournal archive from the U.S. National Institutes of HealthGo to source

Fruit : plums, peaches, nectarines, apples

Vegetables: artichokes, broccoli, brussels sprouts

Whole wheat breads and pasta

Avoid red meat because it contains a high amount of cholesterol which can raise your LDL levels. When you do eat red meat, choose grass-fed red meat.

Leafy green vegetables

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Anything Greater Than 39 Mg/dl Is Considered Good

Doctors believe the HDL proteins carry away the LDL proteins to the liver, where it is broken down and exits the body.

Triglycerides are the most common type of fat in the body they store excess energy from your diet.

A high triglyceride level combined with low HDL cholesterol or high LDL cholesterol is linked with fatty buildups in artery walls therefore, increasing the risk of heart attack and stroke.

My husbands Triglyceride level was 282 mg/dL, whereas, 150 should be highest.

HDL level 35 mg/dL, whereas 39 mg/dL should be the lowest

LDL level 146 mg/dl, wheras 100 mg/dL is optimal

No Apparent Danger Of Very Low Ldl Cholesterol

LDL is a key component of many hormones and all cell membranes, which allow cells to communicate with each other. Earlier studies had raised concerns that lowering LDL too far might interfere with normal cellular functions, especially in organs that have higher lipid concentrations, such as the brain and reproductive organs. And there have been reports of a slightly increased risk of osteoporosis and brain bleeding in patients treated with high doses of statin medications.

Well-known side effects in people who use statin medications include muscle aches and a slightly increased risk of diabetes, especially when high doses of medication are used. Whether these risks are due to the statin medications themselves or the lowering of LDL is not entirely clear.

However, people with rare inherited disorders in which LDL levels are extremely low from birth appear to have normal fertility and no major organ dysfunction. Therefore, an extremely low LDL by itself does not appear to be dangerous in these unusual cases.

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Filtered Coffee Is A Better Choice

A study published in 2018 tracked how much coffee people 18 to 24 drank in the course of a week and compared it to their cholesterol levels. The researchers found that the more espresso-based drinks the participants drank, the higher their cholesterol.

Espresso is brewed by having hot water shot directly into fine coffee grounds, rather than dripping slowly through a filter the way most household coffee makers do it. The result is coffee that has higher levels of the two cholesterol-raising compounds. Other similar methods where grinds and water come in direct contact include boiled coffee, coffee made from French-presses, Turkish coffee, and the increasingly popular pour-over method.

On the other hand, filters like the kind used in your local diner or your house in the morning reduce the amount of those oils in the coffee. The researchers concluded that their results are important, given how much coffee Americans enjoy, and that more research needs to be done. Commenting on the research, experts recommended that those folks who want to lower or prevent high cholesterol stick to filtered coffee.

Skip The Sweet Drinks

One of the easiest things you can do to lower your triglycerides is to cut out sweetened drinks. Sodas and other sugary drinks are packed with fructose, a known offender when it comes to boosting triglycerides. Drink no more than 36 ounces of sweet sippers per week that means three 12-ounce cans of soda.

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Limit Sugar Refined Carbohydrates And Too Much Alcohol

Do you have to eat a keto diet to lower triglycerides? Not necessarily. Reducing sugars, refined carbohydrates, and alcohol may be enough to lower your levels.

As we mentioned, any caloric excess can increase triglycerides. However, the most likely sources of extra calories are excess sugar, refined carbs, and alcohol.19

One reason carbs and sugars commonly increase triglycerides may be that carbs and sugars are two of the most commonly overconsumed foods. However, another reason could be that fructose and alcohol are more likely to cause fatty liver, which can raise triglycerides.20

One study reports that simply replacing sugar-sweetened beverages with water reduced triglycerides.21

And another reports that decreasing alcohol consumption lowered fasting triglycerides.22

Other factors, such as baseline obesity and insulin resistance, may make it more likely that eating carbs would cause an individuals triglycerides to rise.23

If youre overweight or have insulin resistance, the evidence shows its important to reduce carbs. However, the data suggests that most people with high triglycerides even people with normal weight would benefit from reducing sugar, refined carbs, and alcohol.

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Home Remedy For Lower Cholesterol #11 Enjoy Some Garlic

A study published in 2013 analyzed 26 clinical trials and found that garlic was more effective than a placebo in reducing cholesterol levels, specifically total cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

Garlic did not appear to have a significant effect on HDL and LDL. Garlic is also anti-viral, antibacterial and anti-fungal, and may help lower blood pressure and improve liver function.

Fresh garlic packs more punch than cooked. Learn how to grow garlic.

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Cut Back On Sugar And Refined Carbs

Different carbohydrate-loaded foods also contain very different nutritional levels.

Dr. Nissen recommends scaling back or eliminating:

Dr. Nissen advises that increasing your fiber intake may lower triglyceride levels. If you have high triglyceride levels, theres a good chance you dont ingest close to the recommended 25 to 30 grams of fiber a day, he says.

Getting Accurate Test Results

Getting a cholesterol test is easy. It involves having a tubes worth of blood drawn from your arm during a routine visit to your physician. The preparation, however, takes a little effort to ensure the most accurate reading. Food and drink can affect your triglyceride level, so you should fast for 12 hours beforehand. You should also avoid drinking alcohol for at least 24 hours before the test. You can drink water and take most medications you normally use, as these should not affect the test results. If you are not sure about your medications, check with your doctor before getting the test done.

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