We know that LDL is intimately involved in bringing cholesterol to scavenger cells, which deposit them to form plaques in the arteries. This study shows that triglycerides in and of themselves are also lipids to blame.”

To get your triglycerides and cholesterol back down to a normal level, you will have to make some dietary changes. For people who have high cholesterol levels from eating too many fattening foods, cholesterol lowering can be accomplished by as much as 10-20% from dieting alone. Reducing calories to 1,200-1,500 for women and 1,500-1,800 for men will help you lose 2 pounds per week.

When losing weight, you shouldn’t drink more than one serving of alcohol per day and you should be ingesting eight cups of water daily. Adding just 30 minutes of exercise per day, either all at once or in 3 intervals of 10 minutes, can work wonders for heart health.

When cooking, replace butter with olive oil, canola oil or peanut oil. In many baking recipes, you can use applesauce instead of butter, believe it or not! Dieticians recommend eating no more than 5 ounces of meat per day, substituting ½ cup of beans to get your protein and eating no more than 2 egg yolks per week. To reduce cholesterol and triglycerides and extend your life, you’ll be limiting carbs, sugars, fat and alcohol but your replacement diet doesn’t have to be torture.

In fact, many companies are manufacturing sugar free sweets and low fat ice cream to help tame those cravings. Once you use discipline over an extended period of time, you’ll find that these foods have lost their luster and no longer have control over your life or your health.

You may have heard that cholesterol and triglycerides often require prescription drugs to help the body get back to business. Statins are the most effective and commonly used drugs because they produce little side effects and they can quickly halt the progression of coronary artery disease. They work by reducing bad cholesterol and boosting good one to restore balance. Statins on the market include: Lipitor, Lescol, Mevacor, Pravachol, Zocor and Crestor.

The causes of high cholesterol are multiple and they often include inherited genetic dysfunctions, which determine both an overproduction of cholesterol inside the body and inefficient elimination of the substance out of the system. Although most people think that high cholesterol is entirely the consequence of inappropriate diet, inactive lifestyle and obesity, genetic heritage is also a very common cause of excessive accumulation of cholesterol inside the body.
High cholesterol can be the consequence of one or more of the following risk factors: physical inactivity, bad diet, obesity, age, gender and genetic heritage.

Sedentary lifestyle, unhealthy diet and obesity are nowadays the most common causes of high cholesterol and consequently, heart disease and stroke. Lots of people these days suffer from weight problems due to inappropriate diet (excessive consumption of foods rich in saturated fat, carbohydrates and salts) and lack of physical exercise. In order to efficiently prevent the development of serious complications associated with high cholesterol, overweight patients with cholesterol problems are advised to exercise daily and to respect an adequate, healthy diet.

Age and gender are also factors that considerably influence cholesterol levels. Although persons can be faced with cholesterol problems at any age , cholesterol levels gradually increase with age. Despite the fact that men are more likely to be faced with high cholesterol levels at a certain point in life, women can also suffer from heart disease and other conditions as a consequence of high cholesterol. While men are more exposed to developing heart disease due to high cholesterol after the age of 40, women rarely develop such problems before menopause (usually prior to the age of 50).

Genetic heritage is another very important factor that contributes to cholesterol problems. Persons confronted with high cholesterol levels due to genetic dysfunctions either produce excessive quantities of the substance or are unable to properly eliminate the substance from the body. On these premises, cholesterol levels are very difficult to control and even the most efficient cholesterol – lowering medications may sometimes fail to normalize cholesterol values in such categories of people.