Many factors affect your health, including the foods you eat, your level of physical activity and your personal habits. Not only can these factors have a direct impact on your weight, blood pressure, lungs and liver, they also affect your cholesterol. You might hear how important your cholesterol health is, but understanding its full impact is another story.
Significance
HDL cholesterol plays a large role in your health. It is known as "good" cholesterol for a reason -- it helps protect against heart attacks and decreases your risk of developing heart disease. It is a lipoprotein, and its job is to carry cholesterol through the blood. However, the type of cholesterol it transports -- your LDL, is the "bad" cholesterol. Carrying the LDL away from your arteries and out of your body is what makes your HDL so important.
Levels
Every type of cholesterol has a target range that doctors use to determine whether your levels are too high, too low or optimal. While your bad cholesterol needs to be low, your HDL needs to be as high as possible to effectively protect your heart.
Low levels differ in men and women; a low HDL for men is less than 40 mg/dL, while less than 50 mg/dL is too low for women. Target range for both is 60 mg/dL or greater, according to MayoClinic.com.
Dietary Changes
Maintaining healthy HDL levels, or increasing a low HDL, typically requires dietary changes. The most important is choosing healthy fats.
Only 25 to 35 percent of your total caloric intake should come from fats, good or bad. Saturated and trans fats are those you want to avoid. Sources of these include red meat, eggs, whole-fat dairy products, cookies, cakes, pastries and snack foods. Breaking it down further, you find saturated fats primarily in animal products, while trans fats are basically baked goods containing hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oil.
Consuming as many healthy fats as possible can increase your HDL. These include peanuts, walnuts, pistachios, almonds, avocados, olives and cooking oils such as canola, peanut and sunflower. Sources of omega-3s like fish are good alternatives to red meats.
Lifestyle Changes
It is common to combine lifestyle changes with dietary changes when trying to improve your HDL cholesterol.
Losing weight can make a drastic difference when trying to increase your HDL. As MayoClinic.com explains, for every 6 lbs. you lose, you can increase your HDL by 1 mg/dL. Ask your doctor to help you devise a weight loss plan you can stick to.
Combine exercise with your diet plan to boost weight loss, or add physical activity into your daily routine for the health of it. Thirty minutes a day, most days of the week, can increase your HDL by approximately 5 percent within two months if your life is otherwise sedentary. You can also maintain healthy HDL levels by increasing the amount of exercise you participate in.
Increase your levels by as much as 10 percent just by quitting smoking. Tobacco is harsh on your good cholesterol; if you are a nonsmoker, keep it this way to prevent a dip in your HDL.
Warning
Make regular appointments with your doctor to stay on top of your cholesterol health. Ask about blood testing to determine what your current levels are, as any cholesterol level -- good or bad -- shows no outward symptoms. A lipid profile is the only way to detect and treat any problems you might have.
