Reducing Cholesterol Levels Naturally using Seeds and Fruits
Reducing your cholesterol levels requires you to change certain pattern of life styles like smoking and eating right, regular exercise.. Knowing what to eat can be a problem since you cant identify what is right or wrong for you.
Here I provide few fruits, seeds and food that can reduce cholesterol levels
Oat Bran
A fabulous, inexpensive source of the fiber beta-glucan, that can reduce both large and small LDL by 10, 20, 30 Mg/dl. Use oat bran as a hot cereal micro-waved with skim, 1%, or soy milk with Walnuts, blueberries, e.t.c. Or, you can add a teaspoon or two to yoghurt or cottage cheese, even "bread" chicken, fish, eggplant, or other foods.
Ground Flaxseed
Similar to oat bran but essentially devoid of digestible carbohydrates, it is a wonderful way to reduce LDL and obtain healthy fiber. Use it just as you would oat bran, as a hot cereal or added to other foods. • Elimination of wheat products - Yes, that's right. I know it sounds weird. Elimination of wheat products is an enormously-enormously-effective strategy that reduces the small LDL particles drastically. Small LDL particles have exploded in recent years, often dominating total LDL. For this reason,
Eliminating any food made with wheat flour, such as all breads (white, wheat, whole grain), pastas, breakfast cereals (unless oat based), crackers, pretzels, e.t.c yields drops in LDL of 20, 30, 50 mg/dl, sometimes more, depending on how much small LDL is present. Get your fiber from oat bran, flaxseed, vegetables, fruits, and nuts instead. Interestingly, people who eliminate wheat find it easier than just cutting back on wheat. I believe this is because wheat has an addictive quality that makes you want more and more and . . . Avoidance of high-glycemic index foods - Along with wheat, this includes candies, soft drinks, cookies, white potatoes, white rice, etc. This effect develops if small LDL is present.Raw nuts
A really great way to reduce LDL. Nuts got a bad name from the processed, salted, hydrogenated-oil soaked products that dominated supermarket shelves. Instead, look for raw almonds, walnuts, pecansand pistachios. ¼-1/2 cup per day can yield significant reductions in LDL and do not make you fat, since high fiber and monounsaturated fat content provide a feeling of fullness that diminishes appetite for other foods.
Niacin
Yes, yes, I know: The hot-flush effect is annoying. Niacin is vitamin B3 and I have well over a thousand patients taking it. Niacin is as effective as statin drugs in reducing LDL; it's also the best agent available (after weight loss and elimination of wheat) for reducing the dreaded small LDL particles.
Drinking up to 16 oz water if you get the hot flush is tremendously effective in eliminating this annoying effect.
Other methods to reduce LDL include the stannous esters from the butter-substitute, Benecol, and soy foods rich in soy protein like tofu, soy protein powder (as a smoothie, for instance), and soy milk.
Nutritional supplement fans will note the absence of red yeast rice, policosanol, pantethine, and some others purported to reduce LDL cholesterol. However, I have not found consistent, reliable effects with any of these agents.Please also note that fish oil-one of my favorite supplements in the world-is not on the list because it does not reduce LDL cholesterol. It raises it, in fact, because of the shift of VLDL(Very Low Density Lipoprotein) particles into the LDL class-an important topic for another post.
Remember one thing to note is that eating right is as important as regular exercise to achieve your optimum body weight
