How to Lower Your Cholesterol Naturally

In the years following World War II, physicians in the U.S. and Europe noticed a surprising phenomenon: rates of heart attack and stroke fell dramatically in many places. Autopsies from this period also revealed reduced rates of atherosclerosis, which is a buildup of fatty arterial plaques that causes cardiovascular disease. At first, experts were perplexed. But as time passed, many concluded that wartime food deprivations and the forced shifts in people’s diets—namely, big reductions in the consumption of red meat and other animal products—contributed to the heart-health improvements. Later work, particularly the famous Framingham Heart Study, helped establish that blood cholesterol levels, driven in large part by a person’s diet, tended to overlap closely with cardiovascular disease. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The idea that the foods a person eats could raise or lower their risks for unhealthy cholesterol levels and disease was, at first, a radical and controversial one. While there’s ongoing debate about the relationship between red meat and poor health, the links connecting diet, cholesterol, and cardiovascular disease are beyond doubt. Cholesterol is a waxy compound that your body uses primarily to make hormones and to firm up the walls of cells. “Our body needs some cholesterol for day-to-day functioning, but the amount our body needs is relatively small,” says Dr. Laurence Sperling, the founder and director of...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized freelance healthscienceclimate heart health Source Type: news