Lower Your Cholesterol!!

After reading about most cholesterol medications I have decided that I’m not sure if the cholesterol is any worse than the side effects from taking cholesterol medications. There are things that you can do to lower cholesterol. Why not try them first before taking cholesterol medication? First of all try to eliminate foods that are high in cholesterol because they contain oils and fats. Do exercises that get your heart rate up lower cholesterol. You need to do 30 minutes of exercise three times a week. There are certain foods like nuts and oatmeal that help lower cholesterol.

When you are looking at the side effects from cholesterol medications such as diarrhea, muscle pain or weakness, tiredness or joint pain, you may decide that it would be better for you to try something more natural. It has just gotten to easy to think that the convenience of a pill is worth it. But some of the side effects are dangerous like what ephredra did to people’s hearts. It is always best to start with something natural to the body and if that doesn’t help take one step up rather than starting with something that in the end could be dangerous.

The National Cholesterol Education Program is advising that 40 million people in the USA should be taking cholesterol lowering medication. But what I have read is that people who have not had a heart attack should not take these medications because even though it reduces the bad cholesterol it doesn’t reduce the total deaths or illnesses requiring hospitalization. Most people are taking these statins with no benefits and a risk of harm. There is no benefit for people over 65 and no benefit for women of any age. These big pharmaceutical companies are the ones trying to sell you on these medications.

These drugs may help people who have already had a heart attack by helping them from having another heart attack but research shows they are not benefiting those who have never had a heart attack. It is well worth your time before you take a cholesterol lowering drug like Lipitor to do the research on these kinds of drugs. Even talking to your doctor may not be good enough. They are not the ones doing the trials and are subject to the big propaganda of pharmaceutical companies as you and I are. Because we see so many ads on television we think that these drugs are what they say they are.

I wonder how many people go through life not really understanding things like cholesterol until they go to the doctor for a physical exam and are told their cholesterol is too high. I never knew anything about cholesterol. But then I have always eaten pretty naturally, probably I am a Virgo and they are very health conscious people. At least the Virgos I know. I have read that the more you eat something in its natural state the better it is for you.

So rather than eat a cooked carrot trying eating raw. I realize that to get something from all the food groups you would have to eat many carrots. That’s why I juice vegetables. How many of us can eat a handful of parsley raw? Parsley is a great food and yet basically, it’s used to make your plate look more appealing at the restaurant. We have always been taught to eat carrots but actually, the top of the carrot is better for you than the carrot itself. Grazing animals usually eat what is above the ground not below the ground. Beet greens are better for you than the beet. I would never eat them raw, however. They are great cooked but then you lose a lot of the vitamins.

Wouldn’t you think if there were a side-effect free alternative to pharmaceutical drugs for lowering cholesterol people would go running to buy it? And there may be. But instead of running to the bins where the garlic is available we chose to take one of our statins, you know the little orange pill, and suffer a loss of muscle strength and a drained checkbook. I don’t have high cholesterol or maybe I would have to take one of those little pills rather than taste or smell that nasty garlic. I am just lazy?

I don’t think so I don’t like going around smelling like garlic. It’s worse that smelling like BO. I don’t know what my parents’ cholesterol levels were but I know there is a strong genetic influence that contributed to having high cholesterol. I think though that I would rather smell like garlic than have liver to kidney failure because I used statins.

If you have a history of heart disease then you need to take more aggressive action, because statins can really bring down those high cholesterol levels. But if you are just borderline then garlic is something you should strongly consider taking. The natural sulphur compounds in garlic are thought to act in a similar way as statins; they both inhibit an enzyme required for making cholesterol in our body. Studies show garlic can reduce total cholesterol by about 10 percent and LDL by about 13 percent.

Have you ever heard of reducing the risk of heart disease by eating pistachios?  Nuts that grow on tree help reduce the risk of heart disease.  After a study was done on pistachios 2006, it was found that after three weeks of eating a diet that included eating pistachios bad cholesterol was lowered and good cholesterol increased.  It was found in another study in 2007 that people who had above average cholesterol improved their level of blood cholesterol after eating two to three ounces of pistachios daily for four weeks. 

The nice thing about eating pistachios is that they are one of the highest fiber nuts that are low in calories and low in fat.  Pistachios have a lot of protein and fiber besides healthy fat.  They can make you feel full and take more time before you get hungry again.  When you fill full you eat less during the day which can help you to lose weight.  A snack of thirty pistachios is about 100 calories which is one of the lowest of any other nut.  People who eat nuts have a less body fat than those who don’t.  The next time you want a healthy snack reach for a handful of pistachios rather than a handful of potato chips.

Cayenne pepper is an herb that is helpful in lowering cholesterol.  When digested it helps to clean the bloodstream of unwanted elements.  We don’t know how but cayenne processes fat in the body without absorbing it and then excretes it through bowel movements.  It is truly amazing how fast it is able to do this.  It lowers cholesterol by scouring the blood.  Try using it for thirty days and see what happens.  It is better if you take it in warm water because the warm cayenne water opens up the structure of the cell. 

Cayenne pepper has been used as a medicine for centuries all around the world.  But because big pharmaceutical companies have such control upon the medical establishment the benefits of cayenne pepper and many other herbs have mostly unknown.  Herbal practitioners are looked down on in the medical community.  The reason you have heard about the amazing effects of cayenne is because the no. 1 selling drug in the US is Lipitor, which is sold to reduce cholesterol. 

According to CNN Lipitor sales totaled 13 billion dollars in 2005 alone.  It costs about $10 to $20 to buy a pound of cayenne pepper.  The average price of a dose of Lipitor is $80.  You do the math and you can see why the pharmaceutical industry would not want you to know about the amazing therapeutic value of cayenne pepper.

Once you have been told by the doctor you have too high of cholesterol the battle begins trying to find the kind of foods you can eat that aren’t high in cholesterol and the ones you can eat that will actually lower your cholesterol.  Foods that are high in cholesterol include fish, poultry, egg yolks, organ meats and dairy products.  Problem is they are also high in saturated fats. 

Foods that are plant based such as peanut butter, beans and olives are high it fats and oils but do not contain cholesterol.  There is disagreement between experts on how much fat is necessary in your diet.  Some say somewhere between 10 and 30 percent of your daily calories.  It is really better to limit yourself to 15 to 20 percent of your total calories.  You could eat 25 percent of those calories as saturated fat. 

The rest should come for unsaturated fats that occur naturally in grains, vegetables, nuts, seeds and legumes.  If you eat these items in their natural state meaning they are unbleached and not altered they provide not only good oil the body can use, but also provide vitamin E as well, which is a powerful antioxidant.  Antioxidants get rid of free radicals in our bodies.

I have become more and more conscious of the way I eat since I have been reading information to write these blogs.  I know one of the most prevalent conditions in our society is high cholesterol.  I started looking at the places in my diet that I could change.  I eat pretty healthy already but there are places where we can do better.  Instead a grabbing a handful of Cheetos (which I love that cheesy salty flavor) better known as make-believe food, I decided to try eating a handful of raw nuts.  They are just as easy to grab as a handful of Cheetos. 

I think it is all about how we have conditioned our mind to grab something that has a very salty, sour, or sweet taste.  We need to condition our mind (or better yet our tongue) to try other foods that are better for us even though they may not always have that “blow your mind” flavor.  I have conditioned my tongue to like the flavor of aloe vera juice while someone else standing right by me took a swig and thought they had just drank the nastiest stuff on the planet.  I thought it actually tasted delightful, but I am used to drinking vegetable juice on a daily basis so I am used to different kinds of tastes.

I have heard for years what a miracle drug garlic is.  Then I came across a article that talked about using garlic to lower cholesterol.  After doing a little research I found an article that was talking about a study that was done where they took fresh garlic and soaked it in alcohol (I am supposing the kind you drink) to get out the chemicals and then gave it to some middle-aged men.  It reduced their bad cholesterol by 7 percent.    took five months to do that.  Now these men’s cholesterol was just a little high.  I was pretty impressed by that especially if your cholesterol isn’t that high.  I know that you can buy garlic capsules at the health food stores that don’t make you smell like garlic when you take them.  There are some complicated-sounding ingredients that I won’t bore you with, that help to inhibit your liver from making too much cholesterol.  Garlic is not strong enough to replace statins (whatever those are) but by using it with other treatments it can certainly help and cannot harm the liver whereas statins can have serious side effects including liver damage.  I believe it’s worth a try especially when it can’t hurt you.