Sample Diet To Lower Cholesterol

A low cholesterol diet plan is the key to keeping high LDL, counts in the blood, under control and reducing the risks of heart disease and potential strokes. Choosing the right foods to eat can truly make a difference in protecting against these debilitating and even fatal conditions. Those with high cholesterol, or hypercholesterolemia, will want to first begin researching what foods can cause the LDL counts to rise and what foods should be avoided. Then, a healthy diet plan may be implemented to keep these counts stable and in a healthy zone. A sample diet to lower cholesterol is included with this article to help readers in choosing the right foods and to make life changes. Staying motivated to live a healthy lifestyle is key to successful diet programs for hypercholesterolemia and patients with this condition are encouraged to get involved in a support group or to find a partner who will share accountability in eating habits. But, the very first step onto the road of better health is making the decision that a healthy body is what is desired and can be obtained.

Eating healthy can be beneficial in several areas of life, and of course, eating healthy is beneficial to the condition of hypercholesterolemia. A low cholesterol diet plan can not only reduce high cholesterol numbers, but can also lead to an all-round improvement in health. A fit body can mean improved mobility, improved emotions, improved mental alertness, weight loss, and the over-all sense of well being. And, a fit body is achieved by a nutritious diet and exercise, giving the physical human body what it needs to operate at maximum capacity. It is good to know that the discipline it takes to follow a sample diet to lower cholesterol will also lead to life changes that will then lead to a happier, healthier existence. Considering the enormous positive outcome, those with hypercholesterolemia should now be highly motivated to get started eating the foods that will help lower cholesterol

The Cholesterol Conspiracy - The Truth About Statins And Nutritional Supplementation

"All truth passes through three stages.

First, it is ridiculed.

Second, it is violently opposed.

Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

Arthur Schopenhauer

(1788 - 1860)

What is the true cause of heart disease, and how can we truly reduce the risk of death?

Atherosclerosis, or Coronary Artery Disease (CAD), is the leading cause of death in both men and women. In the U.S. alone, there are more than one million heart attacks every year, one third of them resulting in death. The majority of men and women currently have, or are actively developing, atherosclerosis. By age 20, most people already have a 15-25% narrowing of their arteries due to plaque formation. By age 40, there is a 30-50% clogging of their arteries.

In the beginning of the Twentieth Century, congestive heart disease (CHD) was mostly a result of rheumatic fever, which was a childhood disease. However by the year 1936 there was a dramatic change in the main cause of heart disease. Cardiovascular disease caused by atherosclerosis, or plaque buildup, took first place as the primary cause of heart disease, making congestive heart failure a distant second.

Her Guide to a Heart Attack: Recognizing Female Heart Attack Symptoms

On a Monday morning in April, Merle Rose, a New Jersey woman, experienced what some doctors call "female heart attack symptoms;" a feeling of indigestion and extreme fatigue. Later, she had nausea, vomiting and fainting.
But she never had chest pain-a "typical" male heart attack sign. When she got to the emergency room, doctors couldn't find any sign of heart attack and Rose says, "They would have sent me home."
As Rose's experience shows, many doctors-and women themselves--still don't realize that female heart attack symptoms can look very different than those of men. In fact, according to a study of women's early heart attack signs published in Circulation, women have more unrecognized heart attacks than men and are more likely to be, "mistakenly diagnosed and discharged from emergency departments."
In the emergency room, physicians had assumed she had a gastrointestinal illness. But at the time, no one told Rose that she had suffered a heart attack.
When an outside cardiologist recommended by Rose's regular doctor ordered testing that uncovered major blockages, doctors still made no mention of heart attack, she says.
So when did she finally get word? Not until several months later, when she visited a new female cardiologist. This doctor told her in retrospect that she had suffered a textbook case of undiagnosed female heart attack.
"That's the first I ever heard," Rose says. "This doctor told me, 'They didn't connect the dots.'"

Female Heart Attack Symptoms: What are They?

These chest-related heart attack signs often appear in men, and many women get them, too:

• Pressure, fullness or a squeezing pain in the center of the chest, which may spread to the neck, shoulder or jaw;
• Chest discomfort with lightheadedness, fainting, sweating, nausea or shortness of breath;

Is it harmful to cook or store food in aluminum foil?

We do not recommend cooking or storing food in aluminum foil-even though there is no strong scientific evidence showing these practices to be harmful to your health. We have three reasons for making this recommendation. First, even though research studies don't show the food use of aluminum foil to be harmful, they clearly show migration of small amounts of aluminum from the foil into the food. For example, in one study conducted in Italy about 2-6 milligrams of aluminum was found to move over into food from aluminum foils, cookware, and utensils. Even if this amount has not been show to pose health harm, we don't like our food containing a potentially problematic metal that wasn't naturally supposed to be there.
Second, we believe that the jury is still out on aluminum with respect to chronic long-term health problems. (We're talking here about exposure to aluminum from all sources, including the environment, certain workplace settings, personal care products, etc.) Potential connections have been found between certain cancers and aluminum exposure, and also between aluminum exposure and Alzheimer's disease. Infertility connections have also been found. We don't see any reason to add potential exposure through the use of aluminum foil with food.
Finally, we don't like the consequences of aluminum foil manufacturing for our planet. Aluminum remains on the federal government's list of priority toxins for the United States, and its mining, manufacture, and post-use disposal pose significant problems for our environment. From our perspective, while aluminum foil is definitely lightweight, flexible, and convenient, these upsides don't come close to outweighing the downsides here.

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Will I lose the health benefits of tea by adding milk?

Although this area of research still remains an area of controversy, we do not believe that there is reliable evidence to show that key health benefits will be lost if milk is added to tea. While there are not many studies in this area, here is what we know.
Teas like green tea are typically valued for their unique phytonutrients, including catechins and other polyphenols that function as antioxidants and that can provide special support for our cardiovascular system. These phytonutrients can support our cardiovascular system in many different ways, and it is important to preserve them in the tea that we drink. In one German study, the addition of milk to green tea was found to interfere with one of these support mechanisms (although not with others). A study by the United Kingdom Tea Council showed no effect on the availability of these phytonutrients when milk was added to black tea, and a third study in India showed some mixed effects in this regard. Taken as a group, we do not believe these studies demonstrate consistent loss of key health benefits when milk is added to tea. For individuals who enjoy their tea both with and without milk and are not lacking in any of the nutrients that milk provides, it might make sense to leave out the milk given the research controversy in this area. For individuals who only enjoy their tea with milk, or who may be lacking in the nutrients that milk provides, we do not believe it makes sense to eliminate the milk based on current research.
We haven't seen research on milk substitutes (including soy milk, almond milk, hazelnut milk, or rice milk) and their impact on tea's phytonutrients. Nor have we seen research on the consumption of other dairy products (like hard cheeses or cottage cheese) alongside of tea. Until more research is available in this area, we recommend an approach very similar to the one described above for cow's milk. As always, we encourage you to purchase certified organic teas and milks, and in the case of cow's milk, to choose lower fat (2% or less) products.

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Link Between Everyday Stress and Obesity Strenthened With Study Using an Animal Model

Stress can take a daily toll on us that has broad physical and psychological implications. Science has long documented the effect of extreme stress, such as war, injury or traumatic grief on humans. Typically, such situations cause victims to decrease their food intake and body weight. Recent studies, however, tend to suggest that social stress--public speaking, tests, job and relationship pressures--may have the opposite effect--over-eating and weight gain. With the rise of obesity rates, science has increasingly focused on its causes and effects--including stress.

A recent study conducted by the Departments of Psychiatry and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, examined the effects of stress on the meal patterns and food intake of animals exposed to the equivalent of everyday stress on humans. The results suggest that, not only does stress have an impact on us in the short term, it can cause metabolic changes in the longer term that contribute to obesity. The study was conducted by Susan J. Melhorn, Eric G. Krause, Karen A. Scott, Marie Mooney, Jeffrey D. Johnson, Stephen C. Woods and Randall R. Sakai at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, OH. Their study was published in the American Journal of Physiology - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology.

High-Fat Diet During Puberty Linked to Breast Cancer Risk Later in Life

Girls eating a high-fat diet during puberty, even those who do not become overweight or obese, may be at a greater risk of developing breast cancer later in life, according to Michigan State University researchers.

The implications -- that a high-fat diet may have detrimental effects independent of its effect to cause obesity -- could drive new cancer prevention efforts.
The findings come from research at MSU's Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Center, established in 2003 and funded through 2010 by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Cancer Institute.
Physiology professor Sandra Haslam, director of the center, and Richard Schwartz, microbiology professor and associate dean in the College of Natural Science, are now expanding that research with a new, five-year, $2.3 million federal grant. They will use that funding to continue their work studying the impact of prenatal-to-adult environmental exposures that predispose women to breast cancer as part of the extended nationwide Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Program.
"The pubertal time period is crucial, as this is when the basic framework is created for mammary gland development," Haslam said. "What we are seeing from preliminary research in animals is that a high-fat diet during puberty can lead to the production of inflammatory products in the mammary glands of adults, which can promote cancer growth."