What You Can Do To Your Blood Cholesterol Level

We now know that saturated fats such as butter tend to raise blood cholesterol levels by serving as the starting material from which cholesterol can be sythesized in the body.

Polyunsaturated fats such as corn oil, however, tend to lower blood cholesterol. Such knowledge makes it possible to reduce the amounts of fats and cholesterol you take into your body by adjusting your choice of foods.

1. Use leaner cuts of meat ; trim off all visible fat.

2. Eat chicken and fish more frequently and beef, lamb, and pork, which are high in fat-less often.

3. Drink skim milk instead of whole milk.

4. Eat more vegetables and fruits and fewer fatty foods such as french fries and ice cream.

5. Swith from butter to margarine.

It is specially important to choose foods that are low in cholesterol and fats if you know you are at increased risk of heart disease because, foe example, you have relatives with heart disorders.

Cholesterol

Cholesterol is a fatlike substance that has great physiological importance. It is one of the nonessential nutrients-that is, it is found in all foods from animal source, and our bodies can also manufacture it.

Scientists have found that there is a relationship between high levels of cholesterol in the blood and increased risk of heart disease. Cholesterol is a major component of the plaque that can build up on the walls of blood vessels, including the vessels that supply the heart muscle, so that the blood vessels become narrowed and may eventually close off completely.

What is not precisely understood, however, is how much cholesterol in the diet (consumed, in eggs and meat, for example) raises the level of blood cholesterol, and whether reducing dietary cholesterol significantly reduces the risk of heart disease.

It is not as if the cholesterol in our breakfast eggs and bacon immediately migrates to our arteries and begins to clog them up. Other factors in our diet or body metabolism, including exercise, may affect how much of the cholesterol we eat ultimately becomes part of our bodies and subjects us to increased risk of heeart disease.