by Andrews Victor

Created on: March 28, 2010

Lowering your “bad cholesterol” is an important step in trying to prevent strokes, heart attacks and other cardiovascular diseases and thereby increasing your chances of a long and healthy life.

One easy way you can lower your bad cholesterol is by popping prescription pills but this only helps in providing temporary relief. Also, you might want to consider the long-term side effects of the chemical build-up as a consequence of these medications.

However, there is a healthier and cost-effective method to lower your bad cholesterol naturally which can only result in long-term benefits. And that is by changing your lifestyle and diet.

Basically, cholesterol is a type of fat produced in your body and needed to form cell membranes, hormones and for other body functions. Since cholesterol is insoluble it hitches a piggy-back ride through the blood stream on a particle called lipoprotein to reach the various parts of your body where it is needed.

Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) is the “bad boy” because it piles up cholesterol on the walls of arteries. The build-up of this plaque interferes with the flow of blood by narrowing and ultimately blocking the arteries which feed the heart and the brain. High-density lipoprotein (HDL), on the other hand, plays the “Good Samaritan” by picking up the LDL clogging your arteries and taking it to the liver where it is processed and eventually excreted.

So it logically follows that you try and maintain low levels of LDL while raising the HDL numbers and lowering your cholesterol levels overall. How does one achieve this? Two magic words: Exercise and diet.

Changing your lifestyle

Sweat it out: Exercise, exercise, exercise! Doctors never get tired of using this word, at the risk of sounding like a broken record. But this is one advice you would do well to heed. There is no alternative to regular physical exercise to stay fit and healthy. The human body was not designed for a sedentary lifestyle, so get active, stretch those muscles, pump up the adrenalin and get your heart and pulse rates up.

Exercising even just 30 minutes a day works better than any drug in increasing HDL, reducing LDL and lowering your overall cholesterol levels. A brisk walk, cycling, jogging, swimming or a vigorous work-out at the local gym can work wonders to burn up that excess fat. Brisk exercise speeds blood flow in your arteries, reducing the chances of inflammation and clogging of your arteries.

Shed the extra

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