High levels of cholesterol circulating around in your blood can lead to major diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, stroke and heart attacks. There are many prescription drugs available to help lower your cholesterol level. Some individuals rather take the natural method first and exhaust all natural means before going to prescription medications. There are many natural options that can help lower your cholesterol levels.
Diet
Watch your diet. This is the biggest and easiest natural method to lower your cholesterol levels. Lowering your saturated fat intake, solid animals fats found in meat and chicken skin promote your liver to make more cholesterol as reported by US News and Health. Eating foods low in cholesterol can help some individuals because their bodies don't recognize outside cholesterol and their liver will continue to make more cholesterol than what is needed.
Vegetarian Foods
Increase your intake of vegetarian food options. Using tofu to make desserts lowers your overall fat intake, but especially saturated fat and cholesterol. Plant foods contain no cholesterol and saturated fat, according to US News and Health. Palm kernel and coconut oils are two plant saturated fats and there is conflicting information regarding how useful these fats are in lowering cholesterol levels. Vegetarian analogs, such as veggie burgers, chicken cutlets and meatless ground are good options to replace meat in your diet. Meat is the number one source of saturated fat and cholesterol in the American diet, by replacing meat with vegetarian meat options naturally lowers your fat and cholesterol intake.
Exercise
Exercise most days of the week. Exercise promotes weight loss and maintenance, depending if you are within a healthy body weight range. If you are overweight, losing 5 to 10 percent of your body weight can reduce your LDL or bad cholesterol level. Aerobic exercise, such as walking, running, biking, kickboxing class or group boot camps engage your heart and lungs to improve their function. These methods of training have been shown to raise HDL or good cholesterol levels in some people as reported by eHealthMD.com.
Natural Supplements
MayoClinic.com recommends natural herbal extracts, fiber and plant sterols to help lower your cholesterol naturally. Beta-sitosterol is found in Promise Activ margarine or oral supplements to help lower your total and LDL cholesterol level. Artichoke extract is the newest supplement tested to lower cholesterol levels. More research is needed to confirm how effective Artichoke extract is in lowering your LDL cholesterol. Garlic gloves and extracts have been used by people to manage their cholesterol levels. Garlic extract is sold as an oral supplement has been documented to lower triglycerides, total and LDL cholesterol levels. Red yeast rice is another over-the-counter supplement sold to lower cholesterol levels. According to MayoClinic.com, the active ingredient in red yeast rice is similar to lovastatin, which is a prescription medication to lower cholesterol levels made by Merck. Over-the-counter supplements are not regulated for purity, so exercise caution when using supplements because you can't be guaranteed how much of the active ingredient is present.
