Foods to Avoid High Cholesterol - Is This a Better Alternative Than Taking Statin Drugs?

Are there foods to avoid high cholesterol or to help balance HDL/LDL levels? There must be, since some people have healthy levels and others do not. Blaming genetics is the easy way out. The pharmaceutical companies are supporting the idea that it is your family history that causes your problem.

But, the truth is that familial hypercholesterolemia is very rare. The pharmaceutical companies know that is true, but they are trying to sell statin drugs. After all, that's how they keep their stockholders happy.

The commercials talk about how you have made an effort to control your diet and you work out every day, but you still have unhealthy blood profiles. Originally, statins were only intended to be used by people that were not overweight, exercised regularly and watched what they ate. But, something happened.

In recent years, doctors have prescribed the drugs for anyone with hypercholesterolemia, whether or not they had made any efforts to lower it on their own. They have even suggested that obese children should take the drugs, despite the risks associated with their use. The biggest risk is COQ10 depletion.

COQ10 is an antioxidant produced by the body in the same way that it produces cholesterol. When statins inhibit the body's production of one, they inhibit the production of the other.

Instead of taking statins, why not eat some of the foods to avoid high cholesterol? Why didn't your doctor tell you about those? Unfortunately, many doctors do not have training in nutrition.

While diets low in cholesterol-containing food are recommended, the idea of suggesting specific food that could actually lower LDL levels and raise HDL levels is still not part of the mainstream medical way of thinking. They don't want to tell you what to eat.

Besides, most of the foods to avoid high cholesterol are not very popular. Soy, rice bran oil and tea are among them, but almost all natural plant food (fruits, vegetables, mushrooms, wild rice, etc) could help.

If you look at what we know to be healthy eating, you might notice that traditional Asian food is a good choice. The Asian diet includes a lot of vegetables and plant foods; the people tend to have lower incidence of heart disease. Regrettably, as the modern "Western" way of eating becomes popular in other countries, the incidence of heart disease starts to increase.

When people from healthier countries move to the US, their risks of heart disease, type II diabetes and other diseases (in which genetics might play a role) become equivalent to that of Americans. Quite clearly, we Americans don't eat enough foods to avoid high cholesterol.

Luckily, we can still enjoy much of the food that we love, without damaging our hearts, if we are just careful. We need to be careful about the kinds of oils that we use and the total amount of fats that we include in our daily diets.

There are also some good supplements that contain extracts from unique foods to avoid high cholesterol. You might think of them as a bit of affordable health insurance, just in case your diet is not as perfect as it could be.

Jackie Leone is a consumer advocate and a dedicated researcher who has been on a search to find the lowercholesterolinfo.com best natural cholesterol balancing supplements available. Visit her website at lowercholesterolinfo.com lowercholesterolinfo.com to discover what she personally takes and why.