Lower Your Cholesterol Naturally

It’s estimated that only 10% of us inherit cardiovascular disease. That means that the other 90% give it to themselves. They eat the wrong foods and they fail to exercise regularly.

To lower your risk of heart disease here are 5 things you can do:

Stop Smoking
Keep your cholesterol levels within the proper ranges
Work to avoid diabetes
Control your blood pressure
Work to avoid obesity

Most of these points can be attained by following a diet rich in natural foods, avoiding fatty fast foods and soda pop, not overeating, and exercising regularly.

It’s even more important that you follow the above suggestions if you have acquired heart disease from genetics.

Research shows that fewer than 3 percent of American 15-year olds get some exercise most days. This is a terrible statistic. If this inactivity is continued into adulthood – well the results could be advanced heart disease at an early age.
Last week I wrote about 8-year olds starting on statin drugs. Now a study out of Chicago shows that 15-year olds get very little exercise. The average 8-year old got 3 hours a day of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, whereas the average 15-year old got one hour.
I know I keep writing about this, but our society has to start eating right and exercising.

Researchers say that comparing blood pressure in the ankle and the arm could give doctors a quick way to know which patients are at higher risk of cardiovascular disease. This measure is known as the ‘ankle brachial index’ and can be used to determine who is at risk of heart attack or stroke.
This procedure can be especially helpful to patients who have no known history of cardiovascular problems. The usual method of determining heart disease risk is whether a person smokes, has high cholesterol and/or has high blood pressure.
The ankle brachial index method affords the family doctor another way to help his patients who appear to be (heart) healthy, but may in fact be nearing a heart attack or stroke.

A Baltimore newspaper came out with a great article against giving statins to 8 year olds to reduce their cholesterol levels. To quote them: “These drugs have certainly prolonged the lives of thousands of middle-aged men with heart disease. But there is insufficient evidence that statins benefit other groups, notably younger children.”

They mirror my sentiments when they say we should change the diets of the young – take them away from junk foods and feed them a diet rich in natural foods.

Another quote: “The prospect of years, perhaps decades, of treatment with a drug whose benefit is uncertain should give anyone pause. Indeed, some specialists fear that having kids pop anti-cholesterol pills could distract children and their families from the very things that are proved to reduce obesity and heart disease risk: physical activity and proper nutrition.”

My most sincere hope is that someone in charge takes this whole thing seriously and does whatever is needed to improve the childrens’ diets.

A few days ago I wrote a post about doctors suggesting that statins be administered to 8 year olds to control their cholesterol levels. At the time the thought occurred to me – what about the long term effects? What would the 50 year old’s vascular system be like?

Well, this concern of the long term effects has come to some doctors’ attention. In a Chicago paper doctors questioned this. Why not try a change in life style, ie eat natural foods get the children used to eating good foods and away from junk foods? This is a common sense approach and some doctors have recommended the more ‘difficult life-style changes’ in contrast to the easier start them on medication approach.

I applaud the common sense approach doctors!

Obesity in the United States has finally reached the point where it is competing with smoking as a cause of death? A study by researchers at the University of Illinois was looking at how health care providers counseled their patients. More specifically – did they provide primary prevention of overweight and obesity?
The researchers looked at healthy weight individuals who reported being advised to maintain a healthy weight. They found that only 2.6% were so advised. The researchers concluded: “Only a very small proportion of healthy-weight adults received primary prevention, which suggests that physicians are missing opportunities to help address the epidemic of adult obesity in the US.”
The numbers of obese keeps increasing and it seems that little is being done about it?

Although not in the same words, I’ve written about this concept several times. I called it a ‘daily tally of the foods and calories you eat’. Yahoo this morning had an article about food diaries. Those who kept a diary lost about twice as much weight as those who didn’t.
The diary can be as simple as emailing yourself during the day with a list of foods you ate. Or just scribbling down on post it notes and recording it later.
It just makes common sense – if you collect data about what you eat, you can understand how much and how often you do eat. And from there you can develop a method to lose weight.
So if you call it a ‘daily tally’ or a ‘food diary’ either way it is a useful tool for those of us who want to lose weight.

I was disturbed this morning by an article I read. In Chicago an influential doctors group is recommending that some children as young as 8 be given cholesterol-fighting drugs to ward off future heart problems.
Can you imagine children being given medication for cholesterol? My first thought was the pharmaceuticals are gaining new ground. But then when we see the rising rate of obesity (and diabetes) in children – it’s no wonder children need this help.
This is recognition that heart disease begins early in life. It starts when children start eating junk food and fast food. And they don’t exercise. Video games, electrified motor scooters, etc cause the kids be physically inactive. After only a few years they are ready to start heart medication.
We have to get the children up off the couch and out riding bikes and playing running games. And start feeding them natural foods, ones their bodys need to be heart healthy.
I always remember the quote From a Tale of Two Cities, ‘These are the best of all times and the worse of all times… Well, we live in incredible times, but the bad part of it is processed foods. They are made to taste incredibly good, but they can be incredibly bad for us.

In a UK study, the authors examined the relationship between fasting levels of blood fats and short term verbal memory in 3,673 male and female middle aged adults who were taking part in the study.

Blood samples were taken at two measuring points: at mean age 55 and mean age 61, and tested for lipid or blood fat levels, including total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and triglycerides. The participants also completed short term memory tests at the two measuring points.

This study started in 1985 and has been following over 10,000 male and female London-based members of the British Civil Service. The participants have regular clinical exams and periodically fill in questionnaires.The results showed that: · Compared to having high HDL-C, having low HDL-C was linked to having a higher risk of memory deficit at the first (27 per cent higher risk) and second measuring point (53 per cent higher risk).· Decrease in HDL-C over the 5 year follow up was linked with memory decline (61 per cent higher risk).The study is the work of researchers at University College, London, and is published in the 30th June issue of the Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology journal of the American Heart Association.Who would have thought that low HDL levels could be linked to memory problems in middle age? It’s amazing how much we are learning about heart related problems.

Yesterday I wrote about the glycemic index (GI) and its possibilities for use as a tool in helping dieters. Instead of counting calories one could use the GI of the food. Well, upon reading further there appears to be a few problems with the GI. I ended yesterday by writing that the GI had some quirks. For example- while many sweet and sugary foods do have high GI’s, some starchy foods like potatoes or white bread score even higher than honey or table sugar! This can all be explained. It has to do with the processing of the foods and the time it will stay in the stomach. If you pick a food and process it differently you can get a different GI from it. So hold the presses. Maybe calorie counting is still a good approach.Researchers realizing the flaws in the GI have come up with the glycemic load and even another called the satiety index. The problem I see with the former is it’s based on the GI so it must carry some of the GI’s quirkiness. The satiety index is developed on how people feel i.e. if they are hungry so long after eating a particular food. This doesn’t seem too scientific to me in that it involves perceptions and emotions.