There are many factors to take into consideration with heart disease. One of the most common types is coronary artery disease. Here are some things to take into consideration.

You Do Not See It Coming.
This disease can take many years to develop. Most times you will not be aware that you have a problem until it presents itself. In addition, that could be too late. Gradual deposits within the arteries can bring it about. The deposits are made of fatty tissue. This is also referred to as plaque. In time, the plaque build-up becomes worse. The blood flow in the arteries slowly gets restricted. It is like water running through a hose. When the pathway narrows, less water flows and the force is increased. When an artery is narrowed, a blood clot can lodge within the area. This may block off the flow of blood completely. When this happens to the heart, you have a heart attack. The heart starts to die from lack of oxygen.

Causes
Lifestyle is a big influence. Eating a high fat and high cholesterol diet can be a factor. Sedentary lifestyle may also be a cause.

Genetics may also play a big role. Often times, heart problems run in families. If you have a close relative with a heart condition, you may also be as risk.

Smoking has been linked to arteriosclerosis. The act of smoking has an effect on plaque build-up within the blood vessels.

Blood sugar problems can also be an indicator. Diabetes increases the risks with such conditions.

Age is also a factor. The longer we live, the greater the chance of plaque build-up. However, it is affecting young people also.

Symptoms
Symptoms of arteriosclerosis can be non-existent. Elevated blood pressure might be an indicator. A person may feel chest pain and nausea. Any type of heart attack symptom can mean the presence of this disease. Urgent medical care may be need, in those cases.

Treatments
The best agreed upon treatment is prevention. A lifestyle that contains exercise, fruits and vegetables is recommended. Limiting salt and fatty foods is also a good thing. Management for conditions like hypertension and high cholesterol are very important. They are also known as silent killers. If you have had a heart attack it will be very important to listen to your doctor. You may need to take medications and revamp your lifestyle.

Learn more about it. The more you know, the better you are equipped to deal with it. Visit libraries or online search engines.

Conclusions

Heart disease is a silent killer because there may be no symptoms. It takes many years to develop. It is very important to get regular checkups. There are things that you can do to prevent this problem. Education is a great tool for effective treatment.

There are some other steps needed at the same time to ensure that your cholesterol is in correct balance. Ideally what you want to achieve is to not only lower LDL (bad) cholesterol, but also raise HDL (good) cholesterol, and in addition to that get your body working so that any excess cholesterol that is in the blood is either dissolved or turned into bile salts so it can be excreted from the body.

This leaves us with a choice of two ways how to lower cholesterol with herbs and they are a) take individual herbs to achieve each of the desired outcomes, or b) use a natural blended supplement which has various herbs etc… in it which can help our bodies do what is required and are blended together in the right quantities to form one single supplement. Of course of the two we want to use option b as it will work out cheaper and easier to do.

So now that we know a blended supplement is the most effective way how to lower cholesterol with herbs, what ingredients should we be looking for in the supplement? Well, there are various options, but ideally you want your blended supplement to contain the following proven cholesterol controlling ingredients;-

1. Policosanol – This is extracted from various sources including rice bran and beeswax, and it has been found to be so effective at reducing LDL production that it has been compared to statins just without all of the nasty side effects. It works because it contains an alcohol within it and this alcohol helps to increase HDL as well as prevent the liver from producing too much of the enzyme that creates LDL.
2. Lecithin – This helps you in a couple of ways, firstly it helps to dissolve LDL cholesterol in the blood, and secondly it stops excess LDL being absorbed by turning it into bile salts which are then excreted.
3. Phytosterols – These are plant based sterols which are very similar in molecular structure to cholesterol. With this being the case what happens is that they end out competing for the same space to be absorbed in to the gastrointestinal tract as the cholesterol, therefore less cholesterol is absorbed.
4. Theaflavins – These are derived from fermented green tea, and they have two roles to play. First of all they increase HDL and decrease LDL, additionally they are also very strong anti – oxidants which means your body has less oxidized cholesterol floating around inside it.
5. Oryzanol – This is taken from the outer hull of rice and has many different properties in it that help to combat cholesterol. In summary though it is very effective at turning cholesterol into bile salts for excretion.
6. D-Limonene – Extracted from the skin of citrus fruit, this non toxic oil is a natural solvent which when it builds up in the liver inhibits the production of the cholesterol creating enzyme.

As mentioned earlier, you can get all of the above individually from health food stores, but as you can imagine it would probably be quite costly, and not only that it is a lot of supplements to take. And yes you could pick and choose individual supplements to take instead of all of them, however doing that would not be really be the most effective way how to lower cholesterol with herbs.