Stay Healthy With Foods That Lower Cholesterol
Cholesterol is formed in the body as a normal process and unless it becomes high in concentration, it should not be a matter of concern. Unfortunately, unhealthy diets, sedentary lifestyles, unhealthy habits (such as smoking) and substance abuse all lead to the over-production of LDL (the low density lipoproteins) or bad cholesterol.
What Happens When There Is A High Build Up Of Bad Cholesterol?
A short and accurate answer would be that you die. You find this brutal? It is the truth. Look around you - you would find it common today to hear that people you know to be relatively healthy die before they reach their fiftieth birthday. Why? This is in most cases, the direct and devastating result of too much LDL in the body.
When this happens, the LDL tends to 'drop off' from the blood and get attached to the walls of the arteries and the heart forming a plaque like substance. As time passes by, the build up narrows the arteries resulting in high blood pressure; it also coats the heart causing it to reduce its efficiency in oxygenating blood for the body. If no measures are taken up to lower the cholesterol, such as eating foods that lower cholesterol, the build up would end in cardiac arrest and death.
Your Best Allies
There are many ways to lower bad cholesterol. However, one of the easiest ways that can be adopted instantly is to include into your diet foods that lower cholesterol. At the same time you should identify and eliminate those foods that encourage the formation and build up of the bad cholesterol. This would give you a double edge sword to fight this problem; a problem which is considered today as one of the most deadly of all modern ailments.
There are many foods that lower cholesterol and at the same time remove that which has been deposited in the body. Some of the most effective foods that lower cholesterol are briefly described below. Choose as many as you can include into your diet and enjoy a long life ahead of you:
1. Garlic - this is a magic substance capable of fighting many ailments, such as high blood pressure, cancer, low immune system as well as bad cholesterol. You need not bite and chew the garlic in order to have it work - you could swallow it like you would a pill and it would be as effective. Do not boil or fry it as this would kill its medicinal properties.
2. Onions - the garlic's counterpart is another one of the foods that lower cholesterol effectively. Reports have shows that this modest vegetable is capable of lowering LDL b as much as 25%.
3. Beans - all kind of beans and lentils are highly effective in controlling the bad cholesterol in the blood, also.
These are foods that can be easily incorporated in your daily diet so you could stay healthy and live happily into ripe old age.