What is the best way to lower cholesterol?

Living with high cholesterol is a fact of life for many people throughout the world, I was that person until the high cholesterol almost cost me my life following a massive heart attack at age 45. During that period I was prescribed cholesterol-lowering drugs (Lipitor 75 Mg) the drugs didn’t prevent my heart attack, and since then I have been searching for natural cholesterol lowering supplements that would reduce my high cholesterol without any side effects. The biggest question for me “do natural cholesterol-lowering supplements work? as an alternative to cholesterol-lowering drugs? second are natural cholesterol-lowering supplements safe to take?

High Cholesterol

High cholesterol levels are the main cause of heart disease people who have high cholesterol are twice as likely to have a heart attack when compared to those who have low cholesterol, that’s not to say that people with low cholesterol won’t have a heart attack.

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Heart Disease Facts

• Heart disease is by far the biggest killer of people in the world today, according to this study by the American Heart/Stroke Association as many as 836,546 people die each year in the United States from Cardiovascular disease, roughly about one in three people.
• An average of one death every 38 seconds,2,300 dying of heart disease each day.
• Cardiovascular disease is responsible for more deaths when compared to cancer and lower respiratory disease put together.
• Approximately 92.1 million adult people are living each day with some type of cardiovascular disease or are having to deal with the side effects of a stroke.
• Roughly about 39% of Adult Americans have total cholesterol of 200 Mg/ dl or higher. Why is this number so important? according to this report, a cholesterol reading of over 200-239 Mg/dl is Borderline high, and a reading of 240 Mg/dl is a high reading. It isn’t rocket science when you see that almost 40% of the population is living every day with borderline high and above cholesterol that heart disease will occur in some people.

What is Cholesterol?

Cholesterol is a fat-like substance in your blood, over time it builds up on the walls of the arteries, and as it builds up it sticks together and forms a blockage so that the blood flow to your heart slows or becomes blocked altogether. This is a gradual process and can start in our bodies when we are in our twenties. The blood supply to your heart is vitally important because it carries oxygen there, if the flow of blood is interrupted or blocked to any part of the heart this will result in a heart attack.

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The Heart

The heart is a muscle, it works like a pump that keeps the blood flowing to the blood vessels, the heart without stopping pumps as much as 14,500 liters of blood every 24 hours. Blood vessels transport blood to the heart and from the heart, from there oxygen and nutrients are supplied to the body’s organs and tissues, equally, the blood vessels carry waste products and carbon dioxide away from the cells. The lungs finish the job by passing the carbon dioxide out of the body, the kidneys dispose of any other waste products. Blood vessels also help to regulate your blood pressure.

High cholesterol symptoms

High cholesterol can be easy to ignore or overlook, the symptoms may not be visible, and a person with high cholesterol may have some other conditions like diabetes and this may overshadow the high cholesterol. Heart disease is known as the silent killer because outwardly there aren’t any signs that something is wrong so people tend to ignore the high cholesterol until something happens, less than 50% of Americans that have cholesterol above the 239 Mg/dl mark are treated for high cholesterol.

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What makes your Cholesterol levels go up?

Your cholesterol levels are affected by several things, most of which you can do something about.

The foods that we eat contain cholesterol and saturated fat, the saturated fat is the principal reason why your cholesterol levels go up. Eating less of the foods that contain saturated fat and cholesterol will help to lower your cholesterol level. These are examples of foods that contain saturated fat

• Meat products (fatty)such as sausages
• Butter
• Margarine
• Full-fat milk, cheese, and yogurt
• Coconut, palm oils, coconut bars
• Full-fat cheese, milk, cream, and yogurt
• Goose fat, lard dripping
• In addition to this list, foods that are made with any of the ingredients listed can increase cholesterol, for example, toffee, milk chocolate, puddings, pies, pastries, rich biscuits, milk chocolate, and cakes.

Some foods are naturally rich in cholesterol but low in saturated fat, these include seafood (prawns) kidneys, liver, and eggs.

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Plant-based foods

Plant-based foods do not contain cholesterol and are low in saturated fats include:

• Porridge/Oat bran/oat breakfast cereals/oatcakes
• Black beans/chickpeas/kidney beans/lima beans/navy beans/adzuki beans/white beans/baked beans/cannellini beans/edamame beans
• Green/red lentils
• Sweet potato/mango/turnip/citrus fruit/okra
• Walnuts/almonds/pecan/unsalted peanuts/cashew nuts/pistachio nuts
• Soya/milk/mince/unsalted soya nuts

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Things you can do to lower cholesterol

Being overweight increases the risk of heart disease, and it can also affect your cholesterol level, losing weight can have benefits like lowering your LDL and total cholesterol level.

Get physically active! being physically active reduces the risk of heart disease, it can also help to lower the bad cholesterol (LDL) and increase the good (HDL) cholesterol, try to be active for around thirty minutes each day.

Food

Eat less food that contains saturated fats, and eat more foods that are plant-based.

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Age, Gender, Family history

Unfortunately, as we age our cholesterol levels rise, this happens to both men and women, for example after menopause women’s bad cholesterol (LDL) levels tend to increase. Family history plays a big part in high cholesterol levels as well as high blood pressure, these are factors outside your control.

Cholesterol reducing solutions

Most people who are conscious of their health will have a blood test done usually once a year or so, a fasting blood test will determine what levels your cholesterol levels are at. When you get your blood test results your doctor will determine whether or not you should be taking statin drugs to lower your cholesterol, statin drugs are often prescribed for people to lower people’s high cholesterol thereby reducing their risk of a heart attack or stroke.

There is no doubt, statin drugs are very effective but there are links to digestive issues, muscle pain, mental clarity, and in rare cases liver damage.  Statins drugs include Lovastatin(lescol),Rosuvastatin(Crestor),Simvastatin(zocor),Pravastatin (pravachol),Atorvastatin (lipitor)

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Blood sugars-diabetes

Blood sugar levels can increase when taking a statin, there is a possibility that this could develop into type 2 diabetes. The risk of this happening may be small, according to this FDA warning  

There have been rare reports of serious liver problems.

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What are the alternatives to taking statins in lowering cholesterol?

If you are worried about the side effects of taking statin drugs to lower cholesterol and you have tried cutting out food that contains saturated fats, you have tried exercising,  or low-fat spreads but your cholesterol is still high, what are your options after that? Food supplements have been tried for decades in the fight to lower cholesterol but do natural cholesterol-lowering supplements work?

Doctors advice

You may or may not agree with the advice your doctor is giving you, what I mean by that is;

1. Your doctor didn’t tell you about the side effects of taking statin drugs

2. In general you don’t like taking drugs

3. The drugs are giving you side effects

4. You would like to try a natural solution

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Do Natural cholesterol-lowering supplements work?

According to a study by NCBI, this patient followed a plant-based diet and his total cholesterol fell from 201 mg/dL to 137 mg/dL, a plant-based diet rich in sterols may lower bad cholesterol (LDL) levels by roughly 15%, whilst results from one hundred and twenty-four studies of plant sterol supplements reported lower LDL levels of an average of 12% (dose 3 grams per day)If we look at authorized health claims in Europe plant sterol based supplements reduced blood cholesterol levels by 7-10 % (daily intake 1.5-2.4 grams) when the daily intake was increased from 2.5-3 grams per day cholesterol was lowered by 10-12 %. Depending on the supplement some provide as much as 800 mg in each tablet, taking three tablets per day can have a significant effect on lowering cholesterol.

What are the best natural supplements to take in reducing cholesterol?

There are hundreds of natural cholesterol-lowering supplements on the market, there are too many to give you an individual assessment of each one. I can only tell you from my own experience that SerraEnzyme that I use came from the Good Health Naturally Website, CLICK HERE. I use and still use SerraEnzyme 250,000 IU strength, just one tablet a day on an empty stomach, my results are amazing I had a reduction in my cholesterol by 50% over six months. Why not try Serrapeptase from the Good Health Naturally People Click Here

Serrapeptase

Serrapeptase is a proteolytic enzyme isolated from the non-pathogenic bacteria Serratia species found in the digestive tract of the Japanese silkworm. The enzyme is used by the worms to digest their cocoons. Serrapeptase has been used as a nutritional supplement in Europe and Asia for nearly three decades. Each vegetarian capsule of Best Serrapeptase contains enteric-coated pure serrapeptase designed for optimal absorption in the intestinal tract.

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Acknowledgments: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5466944/