For some reasons cholesterol has been general health concern for many years, but scientists are just beginning to learn about the so called good and bad cholesterol. In reality, it seems it is almost as important to improve your good cholesterol as it is to decrease the level of your bad cholesterol.

To understand the importantance of the necessity to raise your good cholesterol, you must first understand its function. Ad when you understand how important this good cholesterol is for your health being, you may want to learn some tried-and-true ways to raise your levels of good cholesterol.

This Cholesterol Can Provoke Heart Disease

To start with, good cholesterol’s official name is high density lipoprotein or HDL cholesterol. Second, cholesterol as a substance in itself is neither good nor bad; it crucially depends on which type carrier the cholesterol happens to be. With high density lipoprotein cholesterol, this cholesterol is washed away from the heart and arteries to the liver where the cholesterol is disintegrated and excreted from the body.

Let’s talk about our body’s “enemy”- bad cholesterol. This is the type of cholesterol that builds up in your arteries and can provoke heart disease or heart attack. Some scientists believe the HDL cholesterol not only washes cholesterol away from your heart, but may help remove bad cholesterol out of your arteries.

Ideally, you should try to increase the level of your good cholesterol if you want to have a healthy heart and arteries. Healthy ratio of HDL cholesterol level is considered to be 60 mg/dl or more. If you will be able to get this level of 60 mg/dl or above, doctors believe you can offset other causes that put you at risk for heart disease. As we said - 60 mg/dl is a good level to aim for, but our advice is that you have at least 30 mg/dl or above if you are a woman or 40 mg/dl or above if you are a man.

Your Way to HDL Cholesterol Level Improvement

Let us suppose that your HDL cholesterol level is not as high as you would want it to be – then you are in luck, there are some proven steps you can take to increase your good cholesterol level. These include getting more physical exercise or aerobic exercise – to be more particular – it includes walking, jogging, swimming and bike riding. Losing weight is an essential element in the attempt to increase your levels of good cholesterol.

We strictly advise you to quit smoking and severely cut trans-fatty acids out of your diet. These trans-fatty acids are found in pre-packaged foods and fried fast foods. Sounds strange but another way to improve your HDL cholesterol level is to have a drink or two each day. But please be advised that too much of alcohol can be bad for your heart, doctors have found that 1-2 drinks a day can raise your HDL cholesterol. Diet rich with soluble fiber can also help to raise your good cholesterol. If you have a high level of bad cholesterol then you may want to consult your doctor about taking cholesterol lowering medications also.

Be patient, the results won’t be quick as a lightning - it takes time to raise your good cholesterol level, but the outcome is worth the work. The more points you raise your good cholesterol, the less is your risk of heart disease by 2-3 percent. If you will be able to raise your HDL cholesterol by 10-12 points, you can lower your risk of heart disease by 50 percent.

Cardiologists of the world hold the opinion that every person senior than 20 years must know his own level of cholesterol, i.e. make a necessary blood test. If cholesterol level is high – this is dangerous, as this is the factor which contributes to the development of atherosclerosis and hard cardiovascular diseases. Level of cholesterol can be lowered by observing simple rules: be more active, quit smoking and make your food healthy.

Basis of all diets on lowering cholesterol is decrease in consumption of fats of animal origin (lardy meat, by-products, butter, fat dairy products, fat grades of cheese, pastry and etc.). Replace most part of animal fats with vegetable oils: sunflower-seed oil, olive oil, corn oil.

Choose only soft grade of margarine (in cans, not in packages). You may use in moderate (limited) quantity low in fat dairy products, low-fat cheeses (not more than 30% of fattiness), lean meat, pastry containing vegetable fats or soft grades of margarine, fried fish, fried only on vegetable fats potatoes.

You may eat only 2 boiled eggs a week. Extend you menu with low fat and cholesterol products: coarse bread, any porridges, macaroni products, skimmed dairy products, various vegetable dishes and fruits.

From the range of meat products you should prefer chicken, turkey, veal. Remove fat and skin from the poultry before cooking it. Eat more fish, particularly sea fish, by introducing two fish days a week or one fish dish every day. Chose desserts without fat, cream and sugar, best choice - fruit desserts.

Pay extra attention to regular consumption of products which decrease cholesterol level in the organism and facilitate its excretion. Such products contain soluble cellulose and tend to form jelly substance when boiling. These are oat flakes (rolled oats), apples, plums, different berries.

Eat regularly bean products (haricot, pea). When cooking avoid frying on oil and better stick to boiling, stewing, and baking. Use utensils with special covering since there is no need to add grease during the cooking process. By carefully following such a diet you can reach lowering cholesterol in the blood by 10-12%.

If following of this diet within 6-8 weeks doesn’t lead to the desirable lowering level of total cholesterol in the blood (less than 5 millimole/l) and the risk of the development of the diseases caused by atherosclerosis is high, physician may raise the question about prescription of medicines that lower cholesterol.

Doctors more often prescribe statins from the range of medicines that lower level of cholesterol in blood. These drugs in average doses lower cholesterol by 20-40%. But the most important that attracts doctors to prescription of statins is the results of the performed researches. It showed that statines not only lower cholesterol, but also ease the course of the disease caused by atherosclerosis, decrease the mortality from the cardiovascular diseases and general death rate. Advanced studies of heart vessels revealed that treatment by statines checks the growth of atherosclerosis plaques and even causes its size reduction.