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TwitterVitamins that can Lower Cholesterol
Vitamins are a wonderful way to stay healthy on numerous levels, but are there vitamins that can lower cholesterol, specifically? Almost all vitamins will help to keep your LDL or ‘bad’ cholesterol low and your HDL or ‘good cholesterol’ high, but there are some powerhouse vitamins that do the work of fighting high blood lipids like a ten ton truck instead of a wimpy old man.
- One of the first vitamins that can lower cholesterol is Niacin. This is found naturally in dairy products, meat (liver especially), green vegetables and eggs. It is a B vitamin (Vitamin B3 also sometimes called Vitamin PP, or nicotinic acid). Without it, people are susceptible to a pandemic deficiency disease in the same way that a lack of Vitamin C causes scurvy or a lack of Vitamin A can cause night blindness.
Niacin works by increasing your HDL cholesterol, and therefore aiding the body in scavenging the ‘bad’ or LDL cholesterol. Many supplements lack the appropriate amounts of Niacin to be effective, though. The largest safe dose to take via a supplement is considered to be 6 grams a day, but if it is consumed from food stuffs, it is safe at any level.
- Another of the vitamins that can lower cholesterol is vitamin B12. It helps to metabolize cholesterol, aiding the liver to do its job. Foods high in this important nutrient are clams, shellfish and liver, fish eggs, lobster, fish, cheese and eggs. Vegetable sources of Vitamin B 12 include seaweed, algae and fermented soybeans, a delicacy in Japan and in some Hawaiian Shaved Ice.
- Folic acid, found in many vegetables and legumes is another B vitamin that helps to lower cholesterol. Foods like orange juice, spinach, whole-wheat cereals and breads, okra, collard greens, chickpeas, lentils and green beans are high in folic acid. This important vitamin, which is often missing in the diet of many developed nations, also helps prevent birth defects if taken while a woman is pregnant.
- You can find benefits in taking at least 1000 mg of daily Vitamin C. It was recently found to lower cholesterol levels by as much as seven percent.
- Coenzyme Q10 is a substance that is found at the mitochondrion level of our cells. Research shows that taking a supplement of this enzyme can help to lower LDL cholesterol.
Try adding one or more of these vitamins that can lower cholesterol to your diet, exercise frequently, and reduce your stress to experience greater heart health.
Vegetables that can Lower Cholesterol
Thanks to Mother Nature and her great abundance, there are literally hundreds of vegetables that can lower cholesterol.
Many vegetables lower cholesterol by means of plant sterols, naturally occurring unsaturated sterols that so closely resemble cholesterol they are absorbed into the body instead of LDL or ‘bad’ cholesterol, thus decreasing the incidence of atherosclerosis, heart attack, stroke and other diseases associated with high cholesterol and triglycerides.
Still, other vegetables have particular phytonutrients, which target LDL cholesterol and increase HDL cholesterol. These vegetables that can lower cholesterol include:
- Spinach – and many other leafy green vegetables (kale, collard greens, etc. contain a substance called lutein, a carotenoid that helps prevent cholesterol build up in the arteries.)
- Carrots (Sometimes called the poor man’s ginseng because it has over 490 phytochemicals including beta-carotene. There is also recent scientific support proving that carrots, along with selenium, Vitamin C and Vitamin E all help to lower LDL cholesterol, HDL2 specifically.)
- Cauliflower and Cabbage – Cruciferous vegetables have shown to be especially effective in lowering LDL cholesterol. These vegetables (especially the green, red, and Savoy varieties of cabbage) contain high amounts of glucosinolates. These special phytochemicals also act as a cancer preventative.
- Broccoli – also high in phytochemicals; one of the vegetables that can lower cholesterol.
- Bok Choy – another vegetable with special LDL lowering properties. You can eat it in Chinese stir fry or add it to your traditional coleslaw.
- Garlic – Yu Yan Yeh, a doctor at Penn State discovered that garlic lowers LDL cholesterol by up to 10%.
- Green tea leaves – green tea has been shown to lower LDL cholesterol very well.
These are just a handful of the vegetables that directly affect your lipo-levels, or blood fats. Ideally, you want a high level of HDL cholesterol or ‘good cholesterol’ which helps to lower your LDL cholesterol, and you want to eat foods which will help bind with bad or LDL cholesterol so that it is excreted from the body as a waste product.
You can also support healthy cholesterol levels by adding Omega 3s found in fish, nuts and legumes, exercise often and lower your levels of stress by reading a novel or walking in a park – any leisurely activity that allows you to relax. These vegetables that can lower cholesterol are great additions to your diet, but you should include an overall plan that includes a change in your lifestyle choices.
What are Plant Sterols and can they Lower Cholesterol?
There are lots of ways to lower your high cholesterol, among them eating right and getting daily exercise, so what are plant sterols and can they lower cholesterol? Plant sterols are defined by Merriam Webster’s dictionary as “any of a group of naturally occurring unsaturated steroid alcohols, typically waxy solids.” This includes cholesterols, and ergo sterols found in fungi, like portabella mushrooms. Plant sterols are those which naturally occur in vegetables and fruits. They are called phytoserols most often amongst the medical communities.
There is a lot of misinformation about how plant sterols (as well as stanols) help to lower your cholesterol levels as well as your triglycerides. So what are plant sterols and can they lower cholesterol? Phytoserols very closely resemble cholesterols due to their chemical compound structure. Since they are so closely matched to ‘bad’ cholesterol, they actually can reduce the absorption of cholesterol in the body, and instead they are eliminated in the colon and through the regular digestive process. So primarily, plant sterols are compounds that mimic cholesterol and therefore lower LDL. If you eat fatty food, or foods which have a lot of cholesterol in them, instead of being absorbed in the body, they are excreted.
Plant sterols or phytoserols can help with prostate cancer and other diseases aside from cholesterol imbalances. According to some people, any brand of phytoserols that you use should be an extract, not the powder. 40% extract of phytoserols is what was shown to be effective in clinical studies. One of the safest forms of phytoserols is a non-GMO (genetically modified) substance that is on the market, (aside from eating organic fruits and vegetables) and comes from pine tree extract.
Still wondering what are plant sterols and can they lower cholesterol? Daily phytoserol usage can lower cholesterol by up to 10-15%. Everyone’s body is different. Everyone’s health requires a slightly different diet, but a good phytoserol is used with other ingredients which help to lower your cholesterol synergistically. Some of these other ingredients in clued CoQ10, artichoke leaf extract and red yeast rice which has been used for thousands of years in Asia. It should also have a liver cleansing formula. Since the majority of cholesterol (both bad and good) starts in the liver, it needs to be healthy, strong and full of life force. Another thing any phytoserol supplement should have is vitamins and something which reduces homocystein levels. High levels of homocystein (a non-protein based amino acid) have actually been associated to high cholesterol and poor heart health.
So just what are plant sterols and can they lower cholesterol? The short answer is yes, but they should be used in a combining fashion with other important nutrients and compounds, especially if taken in a supplement form.
What are Statins?
If you have been notified by your doctor that you have high cholesterol then you may be wondering, what are statins? It is a word that comes up often in reference to lowering LDL cholesterol and increasing HDL or good cholesterol, so you might consider educating yourself about statins. They can be quite helpful after all – but only in the right form. Cheer up; you are about to find out which is which.
What are statins?
Statins occur naturally in plants as a fibrous material that your body digests easily, and it occurs naturally in fruits and vegetables as sterols and stanols. Conversely, statins as referred to by the pharmaceutical industry as medications that are prescribed to lower cholesterol levels by inhibiting HMG-CoA reductase. This is a chemical in the liver that is responsible for production of cholesterol. The body makes two types, LDL or low-density lipoprotein and HDL or high-density lipoprotein, both being lipids that have important functions in the body. The problem is that when someone is genetically predisposed to have high LDL, or has a lifestyle which causes their body to have too much LDL, they suffer from heart disease, including heart attack, stroke and other very unpleasant, even fatal medical problems.
When asking, “what are statins?” statins are meant to inhibit the production of LDL cholesterol, or the bad cholesterol that can clog arteries, causing atherosclerosis. The problem with non-naturally occurring stains, i.e., pharmaceutical drugs like Crestor and Zocor, Lipitor and Lescol, is that they can do more harm than good. Recent studies are even arguing that pharmaceutical statins do very little to lower the morbidity levels (rate of death) of people with high cholesterol.
Conversely, statins that are derived from food sources, that is naturally occurring statins actually help to lower LDL and don’t cause headaches, memory loss, moodiness, lethargy, sleepless nights, constipation, loss of sex-drive, depression and a host of other physical and psychological side effects. Instead, you can eat beans, nuts and seeds. They contain trace statins. Rice bran oil, sesame oil and olive oil also contain statins.
Fruits (especially apples, peaches, pears and cherries) and vegetables (especially cauliflower, sweet potatoes, carrots and cabbage) also contain statins, as well as some fortified foods, like special margarines and butters. Overall, look to add at least 200 mg of statins to your daily intake and you should see a decrease in your LDL cholesterol without the horrible side effects (and price) of pharmaceutical statin medications. Now you know the answer to what are statins?
What is Red Yeast Rice and does it Lower Cholesterol?
You have probably heard of all kinds of interesting things that can help you be more heart healthy, but what exactly what is red yeast rice and does it lower cholesterol? Red yeast rice is a natural alternative to cholesterol health that takes the place of other life style choices like eating right, exercising and increasing your Omega 3s and plant sterol intake. Red yeast rice is a type of rice that has been fermented in a process utilizing red-colored yeast called Monascus purpureus. You may have seen the substance used in a Chinese restaurant. It is the main ingredient responsible for the fire engine red color of Peking duck. The Chinese have in fact used red yeast rice for hundreds of years as a natural food preservative.
What is red yeast rice and does it lower cholesterol?
So, aside from eating Chinese takeout, does a red yeast rice supplement help with lowering cholesterol? In its naturopathic forms, it aims at lowering triglycerides, and LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol) which are responsible for poor heart health, cardiovascular disease and other health ailments including depression and diabetes.
It is interesting that the FDA has prohibited red yeast rice to be sold in the United States in the form in which it would actually help to lower cholesterol. You can still purchase it at a pharmacy or health food store, but it likely only contains trace elements of the substance, which actually helps to reduce LDL.If you want to know what is red yeast rice and does it lower cholesterol? it works in much the same way vegetable statins do, or pharmaceutical grade statins (drugs which much be prescribed such as Lipitor, Lescol, Livalo, Zocor, Crestor) by binding to cholesterol in the intestines so that it cannot be absorbed into the blood, and causing the liver to make more LDL receptors which absorb bad or LDL cholesterol.
It is also curious to note that pharmaceutical statins have not recently been seen as effective in actually reducing morbidity rates in high cholesterol patients, while red yeast rice has been used by the Asian community for more than 1000 years for various uses without any adverse side effects, like headache, depression, lethargy, insomnia, diarrhea, constipation, etc. So it begs the question again, what is red yeast rice and does it lower cholesterol? Dr. Christopher Cannon from Bingham and Women’s Hospitals in Chicago says, emphatically, ‘yes’. They just do it in much more subtler ways than other drugs do. You can look into his study in the Annals of Internal Medicine for more details.