I have high "bad" cholesterol. What can I do to lower my cholesterol levels?
598872
Nutrition is very complex, and too important for a few tips from people you've never met and aren't experts on this type of thing (me included). Get information from as close to the source as possible. Reading studies is exhausting and let's face it, no one's gonna do that. A nice compromise is to buy or borrow a new of used copy of \n\nFats that Heal\nFats that Kill\n\nby Udo Erasmus. It's worth it's weight in platinum. Very objective and quite balanced in my view.\n\nI think if you read (future or past tense) the book, you'll give this "Best Answer"
508772
Garlic helps maintain healthy cholestorol, using mono-unsaturated oils in cooking (like olive and canola) can help raise LDL and lower HDL. Oatmeal, eatten regularly can actually help lower HDL.\n\nAlso eatting fish high in escential fatty acids, like Salmon, Yellow Fin Tuna, Swordfish...etc, can also help lower HDL.
1164602
You can continue to eat chocolate if you're prepared to make other sacrifices - cut down on other dairy products, switch to skimmed milk, use spreads instead of butter, cut out anything too fatty like sausages, bacon etc, don't eat anything fried, and no pastries/cakes etc.\n\nYou could add in things like porridge to your diet which help to bring down cholesterol, you can also drink those benechol drinks (expensive but effective), and you should increase your exercise which increases the levels of HDL, the "good" cholesterol and will thus decrease your good:bad cholesterol ratio.
294388
There are different ways to lower your cholesterol. You should always talk with your family doctor because he/she will know best which changes in your overall life might help the most.\n\nThe following life style changes often help regulate cholesterol:\n* regular physical activity\n* reduce over all stress\n* get regular and enough sleep\n* avoid transfats, instead use fats with polyunsaturated fatty acids (salmon and other fish) or monounsaturated fatty acids (olive oil as example)\n* increase the amount of dietary fibre
947691
Normal values for cholesterol is from 150 mg/dL to 250 mg/dL.  so your values are still within the normal range.  Increased cholesterol from the normal range is not good for the heart and body.  How to avoid increased cholesterol values? Avoid fatty foods,( pork and chicken fat), dairy products ( cheese, butter, milk) eggs.  Exercise is also good to burn out the excess fats in your body and avoid their deposition in your adipose tissue.
1144044
Take over the counter niacine, it lowers the LDL and elevates the HDL.  It really works, I use it, and my LDL was abnormal.
531404
Exercise, Eat Right, and watch your Cholesterol!
421401
There is a book written by a doctor that says high cholesterol is not bad for you, in fact quite the opposite.\n\nPeople with low cholesterol commit suicide...so don't worry.\n\n                   The Cholesterol Myths        \n     by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD\n\n\n    Espagnol                    Français                  Dansk               Svenska \n \n\nThe idea that too much animal fat and high cholesterol are dangerous to your heart and vessels is nothing but a myth. Here are some astonishing and frightening facts (see below) \n\n\n\n \nIf you think this is written by another internet crackpot, take a look at Dr. Ravnskov's credentials and the reviews of his book.   \nEvidence from the new cholesterol-lowering trial PROSPER, that statin treatment causes cancer \n\nNew Cholesterol Guidelines for converting healthy people into patients \n\nRead Dr. Ravnskov´s thought-provoking paper "High cholesterol may protect against infections and atherosclerosis" recently published in Quarterly Journal of Medicine, or choose the popular-scientific version The Benefits Of High Cholesterol, also available in Danish, Swedish and Italian\n\nDr. Ravnskov's most recent publication in English \n \nMany well-known scientists \nagree with Dr Ravnskov.  \n\nGo to\n\nTHINCS\n\nThe International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics\n\n \n \n \n  \n\nHere are the facts! Click on the blue arrows if you want the scientific evidence!\n\n 1  Cholesterol is not a deadly poison, but a substance vital to the cells of all mammals. There are no such things as good or bad cholesterol, but mental stress, physical activity and change of body weight may influence the level of blood cholesterol. A high cholesterol is not dangerous by itself, but may reflect an unhealthy condition, or it may be totally innocent. \n\n 2  A high blood cholesterol is said to promote atherosclerosis and thus also coronary heart disease. But many studies have shown that people whose blood cholesterol is low become just as atherosclerotic as people whose cholesterol is high. \n\n 3  Your body produces three to four times more cholesterol than you eat. The production of cholesterol increases when you eat little cholesterol and decreases when you eat much. This explains why the ”prudent” diet cannot lower cholesterol more than on average a few per cent. \n\n 4  There is no evidence that too much animal fat and cholesterol in the diet promotes atherosclerosis or heart attacks. For instance, more than twenty studies have shown that people who have had a heart attack haven't eaten more fat of any kind than other people, and degree of atherosclerosis at autopsy is unrelated with the diet. \n\n 5  The only effective way to lower cholesterol is with drugs, but neither heart mortality or total mortality have been improved with drugs the effect of which is cholesterol-lowering only. On the contrary, these drugs are dangerous to your health and may shorten your life. \n\n 6  The new cholesterol-lowering drugs, the statins, do prevent cardio-vascular disease, but this is due to other mechanisms than cholesterol-lowering. Unfortunately, they also stimulate cancer in rodents, disturb the functions of the muscles, the heart and the brain and pregnant women taking statins may give birth to children with malformations more severe than those seen after thalidomide. \n\n 7  Many of these facts have been presented in scientific journals and books for decades but are rarely told to the public by the proponents of the diet-heart idea.  \n\n 8  The reason why laymen, doctors and most scientists have been misled is because opposing and disagreeing results are systematically ignored or misquoted in the scientific press.   \n\n 9   The Benefits Of High Cholesterol \n\n \n \nDo you want to know more? Read Dr. Ravnskov's book "The Cholesterol Myths". This is an updated and greatly extended version of this site. In addition to the subjects mentioned above, you can read about
763565
The doctors will tell you to follow  a low fat diet and increase you intake of things like oatmeal, or Cheerios. Exercise also helps. If you take the more medical way, the doctors can prescribe medications like zocor, lipitor of crestor to help bring down the cholesterol numbers. Hope this helps!!
959784
Your doctors just telling you have high cholesterol, you need to cut out the hamburgers and the red meat, switch to eating some salads and some fish.  Also you might wanna have a few bowls of oatmeal during the week.  This really helps to lower your cholesterol.
373110
1. Do exercise (just walkings and don't get exhausted). Always talk about this to your doctor or get a physical trainer. Exercise can raise the HDL (good cholesterol that cleans up you blood from bad cholesterol).\n2. Eat fish 2-3 times a week (salmon, tuna, macarella, fishes from cold water). They have omega 3, that helps to reduce cholesterol.\n3. Eat plenty of fruits and veggies (because of the fiber), and also grain cereals (like oat,oatmeal, grain flour). Fiber sticks to cholesterol so your intestine wouldn't be able to absorb it.\n4. Try eating pomello (grapefruit), it gots a substance that will keep vytorin (simvastatin) in your blood stream working more time.\n5. Cut off fat from beef or pork. Reduce the meat you eat and try poultry and fish. Reduce shortening and butter, lard, bacon.\n6. Try low fat milk.\n7. Cook with olive oil (high in monounsaturated fat), canola oil, safflawer oil.
1184504
lowering fat and sugar intake. increasing fibre intake (particularly psyllium husk). taking fish oil capsules. these will lower your cholesterol, not get rid of it.
204465
Absolutely not. Stay on your medicine and discuss with your doctor what your "target" is. Often times your total cholesterol can be good but the HDL, LDL or Triglycerides may be suboptimal. Ask your doctor if you can decrease or stop your medicine depending upon what he/she believes your target cholesterol level to be
432107
You might try cooking with olive or grapeseed oil. Those oils are known to raise the good cholesterol and reduce the bad. Another trick is to take Niacin (the type that makes you flush. Some even claim garlic can help.
774851
If you know what LDL cholesterol is, then you have obviously had it checked.  The fact that you need to ask how to reduce it in this forum is quite concerning.  What did the doctor who ordered the test say?  Or, did he say "your LDL cholesterol is too high, so you better figure out how to lower it before you have a stroke", "NEXT".  \nHave a dialogue with your doctor.  Don't let him rush you away.  That's what they get paid for.
830910
lipitor by prescription\n\nyou can also lower cholesterol by just eating oatmeal, or taking niacin supplements.\n\nniacin has been found to help lower cholesterol, the only things is- it causes some flushing, gives you a warm feeling.
369052
I had the same problem with side effects. I try to watch my diet but my system manufactures cholesterol no matter what I do. I understand that they are working on new anti-chol. drugs that work in a different way. Maybe that will be the answer. What does your Dr. suggest?