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Home > Get Healthy > Cholesterol > 9 ways to lower your risk of high cholesterol

9 ways to lower your risk of high cholesterol

Prevention is key when is comes to a healthy heart. Improve your cholesterol levels by following these tips

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Disease Free, Reader's Digest Canada; Image credits: iStockphoto.com

Prevention strategies

Cholesterol is necessary to make cell membranes as well as hormones, and your body produces this cholesterol. What you eat also contributes to blood cholesterol levels, but it's not so much this as the saturated fat in your diet that raises your cholesterol. Some cholesterol is 'bad' (LDL attacks arteries and contributes to plaque buildup), while some is 'good' (HDL escorts the bad cholesterol out of the body). Only about half of people who have heart attacks have high cholesterol, but it's still important to keep your levels healthy. For every one percent drop in LDL, heart attack risk falls by two percent; every one percent rise in HDL reduces your risk of a fatal heart attack by three percent.

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6 Comments

Let's keep posting nonsensical articles like this one to keep the population down instead of posting facts that are backed by real studies and actual literature to save lives...

Submitted by Lindsey on Fri, 2012-12-21 11:31am.

Consuming two servings of alcohol daily significantly increases your risk of social problems. Those problems may take the form of marital, parenting or vocational issues. Drinking alcohol to thus reduce cholesterol only replaces one problem with another. Persons who consume alcohol at a light level, no more that 2 per occasion and no more than a total of 6 beverages per week substantially lower their risk of alcohol related social problems.

Submitted by Gary Direnfeld on Fri, 2012-12-21 10:25am.

Ok and now perhaps the most GMO of all - soy is being recommended? Woohoo!

Submitted by TagMan on Fri, 2012-12-21 9:57am.

This is supposed to be "healthy" and they recommend GMO based canola oil? Ok we know how much credibility to put on THIS article don't we?

Submitted by TagMan on Fri, 2012-12-21 9:54am.

This fails to touch upon any of the new research in this area. There is no mention of cutting out the consumption of Carbohydrates, particularly refined Carbohydrates. It mentions Saturated Fat which according to a lot of experts is not the problem at all. No mention of sugar, which is now thought of as the primary cause of inflammation in the body, a much more dangerous indicator of chronic diseases like heart disease. I find a lot of types these "informative pieces" seem to be based on mainstream ideas rather than good vetted research.

Submitted by Jason on Fri, 2012-12-21 8:01am.

I have not found any studies that proves saturated fat is bad. Sure it raises total cholesterol somewhat because HDL is raised. The problem is the small dense LDL lipoprotein particles that are more easily glycated and oxidized that will send you to the doctor. To avoid this I eat more saturated and monosaturated fat and less carbohydrates. The fat on your belly is saturated fat.

Submitted by andrew on Tue, 2012-10-23 8:22am.