Dr. Sam Robbins On How To Start A Lower Cholesterol Diet
You could eat a bowl of oatmeal, a handful of walnuts or a baked potato topped with a heart healthy margarine to lower your cholesterol and you could also stay off medications.
Soluble fiber found in oatmeal helps reduce your low density lipoprotein (LDL), the bad cholesterol. Kidney beans, apples, pears, psyllium, barley and prunes have soluble fiber. To reduce the absorption of cholesterol in your intestines eat foods with soluble fiber.
You can reduce the absorption of cholesterol in your intestines by eating foods with soluble fiber. Your total and LDL cholesterol can be decreased by eating ten grams or more soluble fiber a day. You would get 6 grams of fiber from eating 1 cups of cooked oatmeal. Adding fruit like bananas will add another 4 grams of fiber. Cold cereal made with oatmeal or oat bran gives you fiber as well.
To reduce your blood cholesterol you should eat walnuts according to research. You can keep your blood vessels healthy and elastic with you eat foods such as walnuts that are rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids. Almonds and other nuts produce the same effect, however, only eat a handful because nuts are high in calories.
Eating fatty fish that is high in levels of mega 3 fatty acids can lower your cholesterol according to researchers. You can lower your blood pressure and the risk of blood clots by eating omega 3 fatty acids. This helps your heart.
The Food and Drug Administration recommends using about 2 tablespoons (23 grams) of olive oil a day to get its heart-healthy benefits. To add olive oil to your diet, you can saute vegetables in it, add it to a marinade, or mix it with vinegar as a salad dressing. You can also use olive oil as a substitute for butter when basting meat. Olive oil contains a potent mix of antioxidants that can lower your "bad" (LDL) cholesterol but leave your "good" (HDL) cholesterol untouched.
Food items such as margarines, orange juice and yogurt drinks can reduce LDL cholesterol by more than 10 percent because they are fortified with plant sterols. By drinking two 8 ounce glasses of sterol fortified orange juice a day gives you the needed 2 grams of plant sterols.
Cut back on the types and amounts of fat you eat before you make other changes in your diet. You can improve your cholesterol levels and overall health by not eating fatty foods.
For extra info or questions in regards tolower cholesterol diet please forward all correspondence to Dr. Sam Robbins