Heart disease is a serious health issue. It is usually caused by unhealthly levels of cholesterol. There are many reasons why people can have unhealthy cholesterol levels. On its own, being overweight can not explain away heart disease but it can cause an increase in a person's cholesterol levels. Lowering your bad cholesterol and increasing your good cholesterol can be done by losing weight. Exercise, age, and gender also play an important part in whether you are at risk for having high cholesterol. How much cholesterol your body will make is sometimes determined by genetics and there is nothing you can do about the genes you received from your Mom and Dad. Generations of families can have high cholesterol. Certain diets can also lower your cholesterol level. A low-cholesterol diet is one of the main ways in improving your cholesterol. By cutting the bad cholesterol that you eat by ten to twenty percent, you can improve the health of your heart. A good example of foods that are rich in healthy fats are vegetable oils and fish. These are foods that have good cholesterol. Foods that contain high saturated and trans fats should be eaten very sparingly. Instead of using butter and trans-fat margarines, use canola, and olive oil in your low-cholesterol diet. Using white wine vinegar to keep your pan moist while cooking instead of butter will get you off to a good start in preparing healthier meals. Your food will taste the same but minus the high cholesterol. Instead of using whole eggs , you can use cholesterol-free egg substitute. Changing your diet the right way will decrease your chances of heart disease. When some people want to "look good" for a certain occasion, they change their diet but they go about it the wrong way. Actually, low-fat, high-carb diets can raise your cholesterol levels. Cholesterol is so important to the human body that your body has a backup plan. This is used in case the body is being starved of food. Your liver will start to produce cholesterol to guarantee your body maintains a certain level of cholesterol. By eating a low-fat, high-carb diet, high levels of insulin are introduced and trigger the body to siphon off excess blood sugar into the liver to make cholesterol and triglycerides (which are used for energy and fat storage).
Rather then staying away from anything that has cholesterol in it, it is important to continue to eat foods that contain good cholesterol. Your liver makes 75% of the cholesterol your body needs. The remaining 25% comes from the foods that you eat. Carbs and sugar cannot take the place of cholesterol. If you do this, you place your health at risk because the liver will start to produce more cholesterol to make up for the lack of it. And your metabolism will go into famine mode. Until you start eating cholesterol again, your liver will continue to do this. Believe it or not, a low-cholesterol, high-carbohydrate diet can actually lead to high cholesterol!
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