Changing your diet and exercise regimen can lower your cholesterol levels. If you have genetic component that contributes to your high cholesterol, diet and exercise may not be enough to improve levels. Diet and exercise are used as a primary measure to lower cholesterol before trying medication. High cholesterol levels are a cause of coronary heart disease.
Understanding Cholesterol
Before you make diet and exercise changes to lower cholesterol, you should understand how cholesterol works. The body makes all of the cholesterol it needs, which means you don't need to get cholesterol from your food. The National Cholesterol Education Program recommends less than 200 mg of cholesterol daily from the diet. The healthy type of cholesterol is known as high-density lipoprotein. HDL is healthy because it removes unhealthy cholesterol from the bloodstream. Low-density lipoprotein is the unhealthy type of cholesterol and levels that are too high increase your risk for heart disease. Total cholesterol represents the number of total cholesterol and triglycerides in your blood. A desirable level for total cholesterol is less than 200 mg/dL.
High Cholesterol Effects
Improving diet and increasing how much exercise you do is important to preventing the harmful effects of high cholesterol levels. A high cholesterol level is defined as 240 mg/dL and above, which increases the risk for heart disease. The effects of high cholesterol extend beyond heart disease as high levels also contribute to overweight and obesity. Not only this, but high cholesterol levels may also affect cognitive performance, explains a study on rats in the June 2008 "Journal of Alzheimer's Disease."
Diet and Cholesterol Levels
The National Cholesterol Education Program recommends specific diet guidelines for lowering high cholesterol. You can reduce high cholesterol levels by cutting out foods high in saturated fat and cholesterol and substituting them with healthier fats. Healthy fats clear cholesterol from your blood. Your calorie intake should include 7 percent or less from saturated fat, less than 200 mg per day of dietary cholesterol, 20 to 30 g of fiber with 10 to 25 g coming from soluble fiber and 2 g per day of plant stanols or sterol. Plant stanols and sterols are nutrients in vegetables oils, nuts, seeds, fruits, vegetables, cereals and legumes.
Exercise and Cholesterol
Exercise is part of the NCEP guidelines for lowering cholesterol. If you're trying to lower cholesterol, do moderate physical activity that burns around 200 calories each day. This is around 30 to 40 minutes of activities such as brisk walking, social dancing and swimming. A review of studies in the 2007 journal "Archives of Internal Medicine" reviewed the effects of exercise on HDL cholesterol. The results indicate that regular aerobic exercise increases levels of HDL. HDL continued to rise the longer the exercise lasted. As HDL rises, it binds to LDL, clearing it from the blood. This is why HDL is known as the "good" type of cholesterol.
References
- "Journal of Alzheimer's Disease"; Effects of a Saturated Fat and High Cholesterol Diet on Memory and Hippocampal Morphology in the Middle-Aged Rat; Ann-Charlotte Granholm, et al.; Jun. 14, 2008
- Cleveland Clinic: Plant Sterols and Stanols
- "Archives of Internal Medicine"; Effect of Aerobic Exercise Training on Serum Levels of High-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol; Satoru Kodama, et al.; May 28, 2007
- National Cholesterol Education Program; Third Report of the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) Expert Panel on Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Cholesterol in Adults (Adult Treatment Panel III) Final Report; September 2002
