Not All Cholesterol is Bad!
Most of you already know about HDL – the good cholesterol – and its health benefits for your heart. And you know the importance of maintaining normal levels of LDL-— the bad cholesterol.
However, scientists are increasingly concerned aobut another type of bad cholesterol. This form of cholesterol is usually ignored. But keeping it low may be even more important to your health and longevity. In fact, it can cause good HDL cholesterol levels to plummet, trigger inflammation overload throughout the body, and seriously impact your heart health. Yet most natural cholesterol solutions don’t address it. Even worse…
Typical cholesterol tests don’t even check for it!
Most people tend to think of cholesterol as bad. However, we continue to remind you that your body needs cholesterol to function normally. Cholesterol is an essential component of cell membranes. It helps the synapses in your brain fire faster, so it protects your memory. It also helps manufacture bile acids, sex hormones, and is essential for the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins like Vitamin A, Vitamin D, and Vitamin E.
As you can see, cholesterol is important for your health. Also, while you probably heard that high levels of LDL are the main culprit behind cholesterol problems, that’s not quite accurate. You actually need a healthy ratio of both good HDL and bad LDL in order to survive and thrive.
Oxidized LDL
There’s another form of LDL cholesterol, that we’ve talked about in other articles, that’s an even more important heart-health indicator. It’s called oxycholesterol – or oxidized LDL. Oxycholesterol occurs when free radicals in the blood oxidize the existing LDL cholesterol. As this oxidized LDL cholesterol builds up, it can seriously impact the health of your arteries.
Oxycholesterol also causes good HDL cholesterol levels to plummet even further. So it affects the health of your entire cardiovascular system, too! Oxycholesterol is usually made up of small, dense particles that can break apart and flow through your bloodstream. Research also shows it can trigger inflammation in the body – and keeping inflammation at normal levels is essential for a healthy heart, too.
So the real important cholesterol number is not your overall LDL level, but your level ofoxidized cholesterol. With cholesterol supplements, there are many popular natural remedies that support healthy LDL levels, but very few target the problem of oxycholesterol.
Cholesterol Supplements
It’s true you can lower your cholesterol levels significantly with a healthy diet and regular exercise. But sometimes, diet and exercise aren’t enough – and that’s why many people turn to cholesterol formulas.
You may have also heard about the benefits of red yeast rice for cholesterol control. While red yeast rice shows some potential for healthy cholesterol levels, it also is similar to, and has some of the dangers of statin drugs. It’s important to watch your liver enzymes if you decide to take it and take care for it depleting your CoQ10 levels.
Niacin is another popular remedy, and studies show it does a good job of lowering LDL and triglyceride levels. However, it also has some uncomfortable side effects – like skin flushing, headaches and lightheadedness. Even with non-flushing niacin, it is a problem because of the amount you have to take to be effective. It can even cause your blood pressure to become dangerously low.
A cholesterol formula should support your heart in five important ways:
- It should reduce unhealthy levels of LDL cholesterol – before it has a chance to be damaged by free radicals.
- It should help you make more HDL – the good cholesterol that keeps arteries healthy and flexible.
- It must reduce the oxycholesterol – that’s already in your bloodstream to support healthy blood flow and improve your overall health, too.
- It should promote a healthy ratio of good cholesterol vs. bad – while reducing total cholesterol levels.
- It should help reduce triglyceride levels. – Triglycerides are blood fats that also affect your heart health.
Some Helpful Nutrients
Phytosterols:
Our plant nutrient, such as grapefruit pectin, hesperidin, garlic and green tea has specific duties but also some general helpful effects. These include some of the effective remedies of actually blocking the absorption of cholesterol into the bloodstream and studies show they have the ability to…
Reduce LDL and Total Cholesterol Levels Faster…
In fact, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis stated that the different forms of plant sterols can lower your total cholesterol levels as much as 10%, and bad LDL levels an additional 15%. Similar results in more than 20 other studies lead to recommendations by such prestigious institutions as the Mayo Clinic, University of California-Davis Medical Center and Tufts University.
Even more important, the benefits of these compounds on heart health are so impressive, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration now points to their potential benefits for lowering cholesterol as part of a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet – as well as for boosting overall heart health, too. They block the bad cholesterol in your diet from being absorbed into your digestive tract, lower LDL levels and raise HDL levels. As a result, they can lower LDL levels alone as much as 24 points.
Researchers have known about the cholesterol-supporting effects of plant sterols since the 1950s. But it was only recently when scientists developed a way to extract the sterols from plants and convert them in a more absorbable form. Scores of scientific studies showed the extraordinary benefits of plant sterols for total cholesterol control.
✓They can reduce bad cholesterol up to 18 percent: A study conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture showed that people who took plant sterols for two weeks saw LDL levels drop from ten percent to as much as 18 percent.
✓They can slash your risk of cholesterol problems by nearly one third. Researchers at Tufts University say that not only can plant sterols lower bad LDL, they can also reduce your total cholesterol by 10 percent.
✓They help lower oxidized cholesterol. A recent study reported in a leading medical journal found that one gram of plant sterols — along with other cholesterol-lowering foods — help reduce the level of oxidized LDL.
✓Plus, they seem to get results for just about everyone! Scientists at Washington University were astonished to find that plant sterols reduced cholesterol in all study participants. That’s right — 100% of the study participants saw their cholesterol drop, purely with plant sterols!
What was even more shocking: those with the unhealthiest LDL levels saw an even bigger drop — as much as 30 percent! Also, keep in mind that the specific benefits add to their cholesterol-lowering benefits!
Green Tea:
You already know that green tea is a potent antioxidant and has been used to enhance health for thousands of years. But did you also know it is one of the most effective nutrients nature (and science) has for supporting healthy cholesterol? Green tea contains compounds called polyphenols. Polyphenols are 40 times stronger than vitamins C and E in their ability to mop up free radical damage all over your body – but especially in your cardiovascular system. They also fortify your heart cells so they keep on producing maximum energy. That means it can help keep your heart beating strong and healthy.
Multiple studies show that green tea polyphenols fight the conversion of LDL into its more serious, oxidized form. It also helps burn up the extra-oxidized LDL cholesterol already in your bloodstream. And if that’s not enough, green tea improves total cholesterol numbers!
According to a University of Connecticut study, the compounds in green tea help block bad cholesterol from being absorbed into the blood and digestive tract. It also increases its excretion from the body. Another study by the prestigious Vanderbilt University Medical Center found that patients taking green tea extract saw their bad LDL and total cholesterol drop an average of 11 percent and reduces triglyceride levels, too.
As you may know, triglycerides are another important predictor of heart health. They are fatty particles that come mostly from sugars, carbohydrates and alcohol in your diet. They usually end up stored as body fat. High triglycerides can dramatically impact the health of every artery in your body. That’s why keeping triglycerides at healthy levels is one of the best things you can do for your heart – and green tea can help.
The polyphenols in green tea help slow the absorption of extra triglycerides in the blood. In fact, a study published in the Journal of Nutrition states that green tea can reduce triglycerides as much as 20%.
Frankly, I love green tea and it’s one of the best health-enhancing nutrients you can take. In addition to its heart health benefits, it stimulates your immune function, supports healthy blood sugar levels, and combats mental fatigue. It also supports healthy blood pressure and may help with weight control, too.
Policosanol:
It’s a sugar cane extract that showed such powerful results, scientists had to test it in 14 separate clinical studies. They had to make sure what they were seeing was actually real!
Researchers on the Caribbean island of Cuba have been quietly studying a strain of the exotic sugar cane plant that’s an exciting cholesterol breakthrough (and recently confirmed in a US study). It’s called policosanol — and it’s an extremely helpful nutrient for total circulatory and heart support. In fact, I’ve seen it work in my own family members.
1. Policosanol reduces your liver’s LDL cholesterol.
Most of the cholesterol in your body does not come from your diet; it’s produced by your liver. Policosanol causes your liver to metabolize ( burn up) the extra LDL cholesterol helping keep your arteries healthy. So it helps to keep the nearly 100,000 miles of arteries and veins in your body smooth and flexible, significantly boosting your circulatory health.
In one large-scale study, just 5 mg. of policosanol twice a day lowered bad LDL numbers by an astounding 22 percent. Other studies have shown decreases as much as 27 percent in as little as six weeks!
Policosanol also helps limit your body’s ability to make more LDL. It is also a natural blood thinner that promotes normal circulation. It also supports healthy inflammatory response as well as normal levels of C-Reactive Protein, which is very important to overall cardiovascular health.
2. Policosanol helps your liver make more good HDL cholesterol.
Research shows that the higher your HDL cholesterol levels, the better. And while many natural formulas do a good job of lowering LDL, few have the ability to raise HDL levels substantially. But policosanol does. In one study, patients taking just 5 mg of policosanol twice a day saw their HDL levels increase an average of 13.6 percent!
Since policosanol can get your HDL and LDL levels into a healthy ratio, it can lower your total cholesterol, too. n more than a dozen trials, participants lowered total cholesterolby an impressive 16 percent; other patents reported an even greater drop.
3. Policosanol lowers triglycerides, too.
Triglycerides are often linked to low HDL levels. So the higher your triglycerides, the more fat there is in your system to affect your artery and cardiovascular health. A double-blind study showed that policosanol lowered serum triglycerides by 16 percent. That can make all the difference in your cardiovascular numbers.
Since most people who have cholesterol worries are older, researchers were careful to look at the after-effects of policosanol on people over age 60 – and the scientists found absolutely no side effects. Though policosanol is derived from sugar cane, it’s not technically a sugar; it contains no sugar and has no extra calories. So even though it’s from a sugar cane plant, it won’t have any adverse effect on your blood sugar levels.
Take Care of your Heart!
Your heart pumps about 1,900 gallons of blood through nearly 100,000 miles of blood vessels in your body. End to end, it is roughly the equivalent of travelling from New York to California 24 times. So if you want your heart to last another 20, 30 or even 50 years more, you have to take care of it in the safest, most effective way possible.
That’s why I recommend a High Cholesterol Formula to people – and why I urge you to give it a try. Its great news if you…
- Find it hard to stick to a diet and exercise program.
- Want an easy, effective way to support healthy cholesterol levels naturally.
- Tried other cholesterol supplements that didn’t deliver the results they promised.
A good High Cholesterol Formula combines plant sterols, green tea and policosanol so you can protect your heart, scrub away oxidized cholesterol, and experience healthier cholesterol and triglyceride numbers. Few formulas deliver this kind of total cholesterol support. There can be other wonderful nutrients in a High Cholesterol Formula, but people have said they like short articles. As a result, we talk about the other ingredients in other articles.
We invite you to also check them out in the A-Z Index, – under “Artery Plaque Reduction”, and “Cholesterol – High Cholesterol Formula“, or:
Artery Plaque Reduction – to help dissolve and remove artery cholesterol.
High Cholesterol Formula – how to lower and maintain cholesterol balance.