Best Foods To Lower Cholesterol Level

Usually people ask themselves if maybe a bowl of oatmeal could prevent a heart attack or if your plain baked potato dressed in sterol-fortified margarine could do the same thing as well. In order to stave off a cholesterol problem you could simply tweak your diet.

Oat bran and oatmeal

LDL is the acronym for your low-density lipoprotein, also known as the bad cholesterol. Oatmeal contains a soluble fiber which helps reduce this lipoprotein. Also, the same soluble fiber can be found in prunes, pears, psyllium, apples, kidney beans and Brussels sprouts. This soluble fiber works in your intestines and helps by reducing the absorption of cholesterol.

For example, you can reduce your LDL cholesterol level with about 5 percent, by introducing five to ten grams of soluble fiber a day. Eating about 2 cups of cooked oatmeal provides you with about 5 grams of fiber which is enough to lower the cholesterol level. Oat bran or cold cereal made with oatmeal or oat bran can also be very helpful.

Walnuts

Recent studies have shown that blood cholesterol can be significantly reduced by walnuts. Besides this, walnuts help keep blood vessels healthy and elastic as a result of the polyunsaturated fatty acids. Marked improvement is shown within just three or four weeks with both almonds and walnuts.

LDL cholesterol can be reduced by 12 percent by keeping a cholesterol-lowering diet in which 20 percent of the calories come from walnuts. A little less than 1/3 of a cup of walnuts is about 240 calories, which in a 1200 calories per day diet means about 20 percent of the total.

Usually, just a handful of walnuts will suffice, because all nuts are high in calories. Avoid gaining weight as it is known that with any food (no matter good or bad) eating too much can lead to such a reaction. Being overweight places you at a higher risk of heart disease. You can replace foods high in saturated fat with nuts in order to avoid gaining weight. Add a handful of nuts or almonds in your salad instead of adding any luncheon meat, croutons or cheese.

Soy

Recent studies from the AHANC (American Heart Association's Nutrition Committee) have shown that soy protein does not have that great impact when it comes to reducing cholesterol levels, even though it has been believed for a long time that it would have a great lowering effect. Actually, the American Heart Association stated that the soy protein has no influence on HDL, triglycerides or blood pressure, not even in large quantities. It only has shown a small impact on LDL.

Jean Helmet is a content editor who focuses on a wide array of niche health topics. Her latest website - cholesterol-product-we-use.com Natural Cholesterol Supplement focuses on cholesterol as a whole, and in partcular, a natural product our editors personally use with excellent health results known as - cholesterol-product-we-use.com Cholest-Natural