People First Health Magazine, Vol. 9, #10, Nov. 2009:Page 3


.....Cholesterol is bad, right? Not really, but too much is one of the major risk factors for developing heart disease. Don’t forget that there are two kinds of cholesterol, good and bad. The good cholesterol (HDL) removes cholesterol from the body and bad cholesterol (LDL) deposits cholesterol in your arteries. There are many non-drug and herbal products used to help reduce high cholesterol, and this page can’t hold everything I want to say. So if I keep things brief, I might be able to cover everything and still have room for my picture. .....As I said earlier, there are two main types of cholesterol low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and LDL and high-density lipoprotein (HDL). The LDL, or bad cholesterol, carries cholesterol throughout your body to the cells that need it. Cholesterol plays an important role in your health. Your body uses it to make sex hormones, vitamin D, and help nerves function properly. The problem with LDL is that if you have too much it just keeps floating around. After a while these LDL pieces get smaller and are more likely to enter the walls of blood vessels. Deposits of bad cholesterol particles are called plaques. Eventually
	these plaques can narrow the space in blood vessels and impede blood flow. This is referred to as atherosclerosis, which is a major risk factor for heart disease. .....In contrast HDL, or good cholesterol, travels around your body and picks up extra cholesterol. It then takes the extra cholesterol back to the liver for disposal. Generally the more 'good' cholesterol you have the less 'bad' cholesterol is present in your arteries. .....There are many things that you can do to help lower your cholesterol without leaving home. Don't smoke; smoking can lower HDL cholesterol. Getting regular exercise will help you lose weight, both of these health changes can lower cholesterol. With approval from your Doctor, try to get at least 30 minutes of physical aerobic	activity 5 times a week. What exactly is physical aerobic activity? The easy way to remember is that it should raise your heart rate, make you breathe heavier but not so much that your can't maintain a conversation. This might include brisk walking, cycling or ballroom dancing. Drink alcohol in moderation. This recommendation is a controversial one. Studies have shown that moderate consumption of alcoholic beverages can reduce the risk of developing certain diseases. Conversely, too much alcohol can raise your risk for developing these same diseases. It appears that one drink a day for women and two drinks a day for men seems to be optimal. It is unwise to recommend people start drinking to improve their health, because the evidence is not that convincing. .....Garlic comes to the forefront whenever high cholesterol is mentioned. There is a bit of controversy concerning garlic’s ability to reduce cholesterol. Some studies have shown its effectiveness in lowering cholesterol (sometimes as much as 20%), while others have shown no benefit. One important study, which appeared in the Annals of Internal Medicine,