Diets for Cholesterol

Most all of us have heard that high cholesterol levels in the blood can be bad for your health.  Diet is one factor that influences these levels.  If your diet contains a lot of the foods listed below, then you may have high blood cholesterol levels and may be at increased risk for heart disease and stroke:

Organ meats	Cakes
Fatty cuts of meat	Cookies
Butter	Pies
Whole milk	Biscuits
Cheeses	Croissants
Shrimp	Palm oil
Sardines	Coconut oil
Fast food	Ice cream

If this sounds like a list of your facourite foods, or you eat a lot of one type of these foods, you may want to consider checking your cholesterol levels with a lipid panel or lipid profile.  This can be done with a blood draw or with a small amount of blood from a finger stick test.  High levels of some types of cholesterol can greatly elevate your risk of heart disease and stroke.  Knowing your levels is the first step towards making changes in your diet and habits that may improve your health and lengthen your life.  The other articles here discuss in more detail things you can do to lower your cholesterol numbers and foods included in a low-cholesterol diet.  You may also consult your healthcare provider for more information.

Other factors affect blood cholesterol levels.  Food preparation makes a difference.  If you eat more fried foods than baked or grilled ones, you may be at risk for high cholesterol levels and the resulting health risks.  Some people inherit genes that make them more likely to have high cholesterol levels in their blood, also.  Other medical conditions impact the likelihood that high cholesterol may cause heart disease, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and smoking.  Age and gender also play a role in cholesterol levels and the risk they pose to you.  Your healthcare provider can combine all these risk factors into a score that can estimate your heart disease risk.    

People spend a lot of time focused on how to lower their cholesterol, but it is worth remembering that not all cholesterol is bad.  Cholesterol is an important component of the body’s cell membranes, nerve coverings, and a building block for some hormones.  The liver makes cholesterol for the body to use in this way.  However, if you add lots of excess cholesterol with the foods you choose to eat, that cholesterol can stick to blood vessel walls, forming plaques that can clog the flow of oxygen-rich blood to vital organs.  If the blood flow blockage is severe enough, or if the plaque ruptures and forms a sudden clot, you could have a heart attack from lack of blood flow to the heart, or a stroke from lack of blood flow to the brain.   For these reasons, it is important to think about how much cholesterol is in the foods that you eat.  Then, you can make educated decisions about your diet and its relationship to your current health status and cholesterol levels. 

Cholesterol foods	Foods to help lower Cholesterol