How to Improve LDL Levels

Overview

While cholesterol is a substance different from fats, doctors have discovered that eating less fat and switching to more of a certain type of beneficial fat has a profound effect on your body's LDL cholesterol. High LDL ("bad" cholesterol) is closely associated with both cardiac and stroke risk, reducing LDL has great benefit. While regular exercise and maintaining a normal weight is crucial, eliminating or reducing certain fat in your diet, can improve your LDL levels.

Step 1

Keep your weight within normal range. There is less available cholesterol and less LDL to shuttle any of it from the liver out to blood vessels and into possible plaques. Besides dieting to keep a healthy weight, aerobic exercise to stay trim may help too. Aerobic fitness may stimulate enzymes, which sweep cholesterol out of the bloodsteam and into the liver, modify it and flush it from the body.

Step 2

Read nutrition labels carefully. Health claims on a product can be confusing, so check the Nutrition Facts Panel instead. Check the predicted serving size of a product before estimating the amount of cholesterol, total fat or saturated, monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fat you will be eating.

Step 3

Reduce your total fat intake. Log a diet diary for a few days and be sure your total fat intake is less than 25 to 30 percent of your daily calories. Fat is twice as dense as protein and carbohydrates, so it has twice the calories. Even if certain fats are better for you, if you aren't careful, fat intake can add pounds to your figure.

Step 4

Avoid trans fats as much as possible. Trans fats are man-made and double trouble because they not only raise bad LDL levels, but they also push down good HDL levels. Trans fats are hydrogenated liquid oils converted to partial solids, such as margarines.

Step 5

Keep saturated fats in your diet to under 7 percent of your diet. Some saturated fats come from animals and include lard, meat fat and dairy fat. Saturated fat is also in tropical oils, such as palm, palm kernel and coconut oils.

Step 6

Select monounsaturated fats, which lower LDL (bad) cholesterol and potentially raise HDL (good) cholesterol. Some types of monounsaturated fats include olive oil, canola oil, seeds, avocados and nuts, especially almonds and walnuts.

Step 7

Add polyunsaturated fats to your diet. These fats lower bad LDL but do not have the benefit of lifting good HDL. Yet polyunsaturated fats are a great source of essential omega-3 fatty acids. This chemical not only lowers LDL, but also lowers blood pressure, reduces sudden death risk in those who have had heart attacks and may decrease cancer deaths as well.