Reduce Cholesterol

How can you lower high cholesterol?
How can you reduce the risk of Diabetes?
Lose that excess fat?
All at the same time?

Well, for most people, the three are interconnected along with poor exercise. If you are overweight, it may reduce your chance of getting osteoporosis, but that weight also is likely to push up your cholestrol levels, while that diet and or lack of exercise that got you overweight, is likely to bring on prediabetes. This combination of problems is associated with metabolic syndrome - and it can turn into some nasty illnesses further down the line. So, through weight loss, you are likely to lower high cholestrol to normal levels, while reducing or removing the chance of getting diabetes. Exercise can apparently help keep a fat person healthy without massive dietary changes, nor having to lose weight! The big one for reducing cholestrol levels at the moment is plant sterols. There are also many other medications, herbal remedies and foods that can lower cholestrol.

What is cholestrol? What are the suggested ways of controlling it?

There is confusion even in the medical definitions of cholestrol given by universities and doctors. It is sometimes described as fat, other times it is defined as a fat like substance, sometimes as a waxy substance. What ever the actual definition, we can at least measure the cholestrol in the blood.

Three basic cholesterols ::

VLDL refers to Very Low Density Lipoproteins. HDL is short for High-Density Lipoprotein, LDL refers to Low-Density Lipoprotein. The HDL cholestrol is referred to as the good cholestrol, the cholestrol we want lots of, while the LDL is portrayed as the bad cholestrol, that we need to keep low. HDL cholestrol also helps to clean the LDL cholestrol out of the blood.

How are the three cholesterols different from each other?

It's a matter of size - the VLDL cholestrol is large in comparison to the medium sized LDL cholestrol or the tiny HDL cholestrol. A more medical explanation of the different types of cholestrol: VLDL cholestrol, LDL cholestrol and HDL cholestrol are all composed of cholestrol, protein, and triglycerides. They are different from each other according to the ratio of the amount of cholestrol to protein to triglyceride. LDL is high in cholestrol. HDL is high in protein. VLDL is high in triglyceride.

HDL cholestrol is cholestrol that has been jettisoned from the body tissues, it's size tells us it is earmarked so that the liver will eliminate this type of cholestrol from the body. As HDL cholestrol will not be left to build up on arteries and so on and represents cholestrol being eliminated from the body, it is referred to as good cholestrol.
Bad LDL cholestrol on the other hand is cholestrol ear marked for cell use. LDL cholestrol is the 'raw' cholestrol moving through the blood stream to allow the body's cells to take as much as they require for normal functioning. When there is too much bad LDL cholestrol in the blood, there is way too much for the cells to use, so the cholestrol builds up on artery walls and so on where it then becomes a health hazard increasing the risk of cardiovascular accidents - for this reason, this necessary cholestrol is referred to as the bad cholestrol, even though, in moderation, it is beneficial to us.
VLDL cholestrol, the high triglyceride cholestrol, is also considered a bad cholestrol. The main role of VLDL cholestrol is to act as a storage device for excess calories that cannot be used straight away. When the excess calories are converted to VLDL cholestrol, the VLDL cholestrol is then taken up by the fat cells. When there is more VLDL cholestrol circulating in the blood than the fat cells can immediately take out, it becomes a problem for the cardiovascular system, in much the same way as LDL cholestrol does.

Always CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR AND DIETICIAN first about lowering cholestrol