Cholesterol Types

Cholesterol is a blood fat needed by the body in moderate amounts. However, high cholesterol(http://www.vasacor.com/) levels can lead to atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease (CAD). Angina is chest pain caused by the restriction of blood flow to the heart (cardiac ischemia). Nitrates may be used to relieve angina.

Most people will have cholesterol blood tests regularly, including triglycerides, HDL (http://www.cholesterol-reduction.org/treatment/increasing-good-cholesterol.html), LDL and total cholesterol. Methods for increasing good cholesterol or lowering cholesterol levels (http://www.cholesterol-reduction.org/cholesterol/cholesterol-levels.html) may include cholesterol reducing drugs, such as statins, fibrates, niacin (nicotinic acid) and bile acid resins. However, these drugs do not reverse calcification. A heart attack occurs when the coronary arteries become blocked. Cholesterol has many types. The two big components are called LDL (low-density lipoprotein) and HDL (high-density lipoprotein). And simplistically, we talk about the LDL being the bad cholesterol and the HDL being the good cholesterol.

That means that the bad cholesterol tends to accumulate in the arteries, tends to form plaques, tends to be the precursor to what eventually might end up being a heart attack.

The good cholesterol actually acts in part in reversing the cholesterol transport, takes cholesterol out of the plaque in the artery and may return it to the circulation, to the liver, to be excreted. So these are the two major categories, but within each one there are different particles, different cholesterols, different lipoproteins that carry the cholesterol, and they are differentially difficult players.

Some of the LDL cholesterol, i.e., the bad cholesterol, is worse than others. And it tends to be the small particle size that is very dense. You can think of the cholesterol particles as marbles, maybe, the small dense ones, and the larger, lighter ones might be ping-pong balls. And so the small marble ones are more dangerous.

On the other side, HDL the good cholesterol, posseses some components that are better than the others. So cholesterol is quite a complicated subject, and we're developing more and more therapies that aim not just at the total cholesterol, but in altering the good and the bad.

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Low Cholesterol Foods: The Right Choice

Cholesterol is the substance in the blood that thickens it and causes high blood pressure and heart diseases. Cholesterol may be good or bad. And bad cholesterol is what causes major harm to the heart and the rest of the body. Good cholesterol, on the other hand, helps flush out bad cholesterol in the blood. Cholesterol can be obtained from the things that you eat. This means that you should always watch what you eat in order to keep your cholesterol level from rising.
Cholesterol is present in the meals that you prepare and from those you buy from the store. It is very important that you know the estimated cholesterol content of all the foods you eat. If you know for a fact that you are suffering from a heart disease, you should stay clear of foods containing high levels of cholesterol. Avoiding these foods could practically save your life.
The key is to go for a balanced diet. Eat cholesterol-laden foods in moderation. Or better yet, remove them from your diet altogether. Start making the choice of eating low cholesterol foods today. That's the only way you can be ensured of a healthy body.

A good example of foods high in cholesterol is egg yolks. You might love eggs and bacon for breakfast. But you have to know that they are very high in cholesterol content. Instead of bacon and eggs, why not settle for cereals or oatmeal instead? They are the healthier options indeed. And they can even flush out bad cholesterol from your body.
The perfect lunch and dinner might be any dish made with beef, chicken, lamb, veal, or pork. Again, these are food items that are very high in cholesterol. If you have to eat meat, choose the lean meat variant. But then again, the better food choice would be fish. Fish is high in Omega 3 that can drastically lower down your body's cholesterol content. Fish can be very tasty too. Add it to your meals and cut out on red meat.
For snacks, you might be tempted to eat French fries and chips. Snacks are part of your daily meals. Now, if you really want to lead a healthy lifestyle, better start eating fruits, vegetables, and unsalted nuts for snacks instead.
If you are prone to developing high blood pressure, it is best to skip dessert. Stay clear of sugary foods. But if you can't possibly live without dessert, it is best that you go for yogurt and soy milk.
You should also watch what you drink. Sodas and alcoholic drinks are not advised for people with high blood pressure. Drink no less than eight glasses of water daily. Fruit juices are the better alternative to colas. Replace coffee intake with teas.
Follow all these suggestions and capitalize on low cholesterol foods options all the time. This way, you won't have to worry about high blood pressure any longer. And you keep your heart safe and sound too. Live a healthy life and you'll definitely enjoy longer and happier years ahead.

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Free Tips to Prevent Obesity, Diabetes, Heart Disease, High Cholesterol, And High Blood Pressure

They are the biggest killers in America: Diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and heart disease. The most common causes of these deadly conditions are: Physical inactivity, fattening snacks and beverages, obesity, stress, and smoking. The shocking news is that these diseases are so easily preventable.
A frequent cause of blame is the unhealthy food choices people make regularly. It’s okay to splurge once in a while, but it is the habits you follow daily that will determine your overall health. Constantly consuming chips, bacon, cakes, sugary drinks, candy, sausage, and cigarettes will get you nothing but poor health, deadly diseases, and a ticket straight to heaven prematurely.



According to the CDC over 63% (that’s over 180 million) of the US population is overweight or obese and is physically inactive, resulting in tens of millions who have chronic deadly, but preventable, conditions such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, and pre-diabetes. Recently the CDC reported that more than 70% (over 1.7 million) of all causes of death in America are caused by only three preventable factors: obesity, sedentary lifestyles, and smoking. The very fact that these factors are easily preventable is heartbreaking.
One of the major contributors to poor health is the excessive consumption of cholesterol. The body produces over 85% of the cholesterol we need and the sugar stores in our liver and muscles remain saturated due to physical inactivity. Because we are largely a couch-potato society and the food we consume every day is loaded with animal-based fats, the extra fat gets dumped into our arteries, belly areas, and under the skin all over our bodies.
Another major contributor to deadly diseases, poor health, and premature aging and death is physical inactivity. Most of us sit throughout an entire workday then go home and sit in front of the TV for another 5 to 6 hours while consuming large fatty meals, snacks, and sugary or alcoholic beverages that are rich in saturated fats, salt, and sugar, all of which contribute to increased belly fat. Shockingly, belly fat is the most dangerous kind because it causes inflammation in the arteries contributing to plaque build up in the arteries and insulin resistance leading to heart attacks and diabetes.
Yet another common issue is that people are unaware of how unhealthy the foods they consume are. When people don't read nutrition labels they tend to consume very dense food and sugary beverages that are nutrient deficient. These foods are readily available in fast food restaurants and vending machines and contain loads of sugar, fat, and unwanted calories. Sugary soft drinks (which alone contribute to over 33% of all US obesity), sugary lemonade, sweetened iced tea, smoothies, lattes, and frappucinos, which contain loads of sugar and fat that further contribute to the accumulation of belly fat, make you more of a magnet to all sorts of deadly, but preventable, diseases. One of the worst mistakes people make as well is skipping meals which makes the body more efficient at storing and gaining fat weight.
Fortunately there are important steps to help you make balanced food and activity choices and help you start a lifestyle makeover process which will be your shield against deadly diseases as you age gracefully:
• If you have any chronic disease(s) take your medications as prescribed.
• Eat 3 main balanced meals, reduce your portion sizes, and raise your fiber intake.
• Consume 2 fruit and nuts snacks between meals.
• Switch all sugary drinks to water or diet soft drinks. Sweeten all other hot or cold beverages with artificial sweeteners or sugar-free flavoring powders. Limit all non-water beverages to a couple a day.
• Increase your daily walking activity to over 10,000 steps a day by making more frequent trips at home, the office, while shopping, and anywhere else.
The good news is that diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic diseases can be prevented, managed, and reversed with your own choices, actions and a lifestyle makeover. Now is the time to start putting these tips to good use and begin feeling better and living healthier right away!

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Using Diabetic Meter the Easy and Effective Way

Caring for diabetes is a crucial matter. A wrong decision in this regard may prove to be fatal. Most people tend to develop complications due to wrong use of medicine and supplies. This is the reason medical experts feel that diabetes care should be designed specifically for each individual patient. Certain patient require to monitor more offers are compared to others.
Glucose meters are devices used to monitor glucose levels in a diabetic patients.
There are several things you should take in to consideration when it comes to working with a diabetic meter. Make sure that you use it in an effective way.
Here are certain things you need to do when it comes to using a diabetic meter:
a) Usage period
How often you use your glucose meter actually depends on the recommendation of your health care provider. Usually, your health care provider will start a process of self-monitoring of blood glucose or SMBG for people with diabetes and especially those who are under insulin.
b) Learn
Next, you need to know how to use diabetic meter. Learn the whole process effectively from a diabetes educator. Make sure that your educator watches your glucose to teach you the exact way you can use you meter. Remember that the training is extremely important.
c) Hygiene
Proper hygiene is very important when it comes to using a diabetic meter. Make sure that you wash your hands carefully with soap and warm water. Dry the area completely or clean it with alcohol and dry completely cleanliness is very important to keep any type of infection of virus away from the body.
d) Prick
Now prick the fingertip carefully with a lancet. Don’t panic or show hastiness. Just prick it the way it should be done and you will be away from all sorts of tensions and complications.
e) The method
Follow the method mentioned below to pride the finger tip.
- Hold the hand down and hold the finger until a small drop of blood appears. Now catch the blood with the test strip.
- Follow the instructions provided exactly for inserting the test strip and using the SMBG meter.
- Now record the result obtained from the test.
f) Manual
Read the manual carefully for the instructions prior to using the glucose meters. This will help you understand about knowing the error codes when there is a problem. The manual also provide instructions about your meter and test strips for many sources.
Make sure that your user manual includes a toll free number in case you have any questions of problems related to using the glucose meter. Once you have learnt how to use glucose meter in a correct manner, you need to know certain factors that may affect the performance of glucose meter.

g) Hematocrit
It is the amount of read blood cells in the blood. Patients with higher Hematocrit values test lower for blood glucose, as compared to the patients with normal Hematocrit.
h) Attitude, humidity and temperature
These factors are responsible for causing unpredictable effects on glucose results.
i) Third-party test strips
These are developed by affordable options.

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Block Cholesterol With Phytosterols

Phytosterols are the group of naturally occurring plant compounds which have two significant health benefits. First of all, phytosterols reduce blood levels of total cholesterol and the “bad” LDL cholesterol. Second, which is particularly good for men, phytosterols can reduce symptoms of benign enlarged prostate. These naturally occurring plant compounds are added to many common cholesterol-reducing foods, but can also be taken as capsules. Even though the word phytosterol may sound a little like steroid, phytosterols do not have any hormonal activity. Phytosterols are known by a large variety of names such as plant sterols, free sterols, and sterol esters. A related group of compounds, which are called stanols, are gathered from trees, not from plants.
Phytosterols chemically consist of beta-sitosterol, campesterol, and stigmasterol. The structure of phytosterols is similar to that of cholesterol, but is poorly absorbed. Because of these traits, phytosterols function as cholesterol blockers by reducing the absorption of cholesterol from food and re-absorption of cholesterol from the intestine, which ultimately leads to lower levels of blood fats. Actually, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration now allows companies to claim that phytosterols-containing products are able to lower the risk of heart disease. Phytosterols can also be found in a large variety of plant foods, which includes fruits, vegetables, herbs, nuts, grains, and cooking oils. Additionally, saw palmetto, which is an herb that is commonly used to treat benign prostate enlargement, is rich in phytosterols, especially beta-sitosterol.
Many studies have been done that show the abilities of phytosterols supplements to reduce cholesterol levels significantly. One study conducted at East Tennessee State University, researched both sterol esters and placebos on the same group of sixteen people. The results showed a five percent decrease in total cholesterol and four percent decrease in LDL cholesterol after taking a modest dose of sterol esters for four weeks. Additionally, triglyceride levels decreased by nine percent while HDL cholesterol increased by four percent. Another study in which 2.6 grams of phytosterols were taken daily for 12 weeks resulted in a decrease of 3.5 percent in total cholesterol and 5 percent in LDL cholesterol. Due to this, it is suggested that those wishing to supplement in order to improve cholesterol levels should take 1.3 to 3 grams of sterol esters daily.
Several other studies have found that supplements of beta-sitosterol can significantly reduce urinary symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia, which commonly affects men ages 50 and older. The benefits can be long term to those men who continue taking supplements of about 200 mg of beta-sitosterol three times daily.
For those people with moderately elevated cholesterol, phytosterols can be an ideal natural alternative to drugs. Even those people who are already taking cholesterol-lowering drugs can benefit by phytosterols ability to further enhance the benefits of medications. In order to lower cholesterol, it also helps to reduce the intake of hydrogenated vegetable oils and refined sugars and starches, along with increasing physical activity. Dosages between 1.3 and 3 grams daily are likely to reduce cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol levels. The higher dosage is linked to greater reductions in cholesterol. Take phytosterols capsules along with food, for best results.
About the Author
More information on beta sitosterol phytosterols is available at VitaNet ®, LLC Health Food Store. vitanetonline.com

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