Did you know that high cholesterol levels in the blood are bad?

But did you know that there is some types of cholesterol that are actually good for you!

So What Is Good Cholesterol?

The way the media has spread awareness of how dangerous cholesterol can be really is an achievement. But in some ways, perhaps the good work the media has done has gone too far. Cholesterol and everything associated with it, fat included, has been turned into some kind of bogeyman. Something to fear, something to stay away from.

But don’t get taken in by all the media hype and headline searching, because this website will show you exactly what is good cholesterol.

Fats come in all kinds of forms – monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats – the kind found in peanuts, olive oil and avocados for instance, are actually good for you in the way they lower bad cholesterol.

Trans fats and saturated fats, the kind that you find in butter, red meat, bacon, french fries and all kinds of processed foods, can really hurt you.

But there are some things that you do to lower your levels of bad cholesterol and raise the levels of good cholesterol.

Let’s start with a cholesterol-lowering supplement that happens to be very popular today for a particularly trendy substance it touts: Omega-3 fatty acids. Fish oil actually has two kinds of them – EPA and DPA.

So, what does science have to say about this? Is it really any help? Regular doses of fish oil that people take usually don’t go above half a gram; in clinical trials, perhaps for exaggerated effect, they tested with 3 or 4 g of fish oil every day.

They certainly found that fish oil lowered triglyceride levels (which happens to be one part of your cholesterol count). It really works well in people who have dangerously high levels of triglyceride; the problem is, fish oil does nothing to help you with your bad cholesterol – your levels of LDL. If anything, you get even more bad cholesterol than you start out with fish oil.

So does this help you in your quest to discover what is good cholesterol?

Actually, fish oil happens to be one of the more effective supplements there are.

A cholesterol test can be such a useful tool in your fight against heart disease, it is a wonder more people don’t really know how to make sense of one. If you are anxious for a way to predict and prevent a heart attack, your best bet would be a cholesterol test. Cholesterol is a sticky and waxy material that coats the interior of your blood vessels and keeps blood from flowing smoothly along your system. When you go in for a doctor’s visit and he tells you that you need to take your cholesterol control plan a little more seriously, pretty often, the advice can go in the one ear and out the other. It’s something we’re so used to hearing doctors say, that we barely hear it anymore.

If you are older than 20, the American Heart Association recommends that you get a cholesterol test done once every five years. If you are male and older than 45, or if you are female and older than 50, or if you have a family history of heart disease, getting tested once every two years would be a better idea.

Everyone’s heard of the good cholesterol and the bad cholesterol; there however, are three kinds of cholesterol that you need to pay attention to. In addition to the good and bad kinds of cholesterol, the total cholesterol count, the total cholesterol count is something you need to pay attention to, too. But a doctor isn’t going to just look at your cholesterol chart and get all alarmed. He’s going to look at how overweight you are, your blood pressure and your habits, before deciding on a drastic course of action for cholesterol control.

So the first thing to understand about good cholesterol foods is that, if it’s not an animal product, it doesn’t have cholesterol. That means good cholesterol foods are stuff like salads, fruits, nuts and grains. It means you need to eat fresh fruits and or vegetables with every meal. It means going for the egg white omlette instead of the whole egg omlette, and it means cooking said omlette in olive oil instead of butter.

It’s also important to understand that, though all “flesh” contains cholesterol, some cholesterol is better than others. Salmon, for instance, has an honored place in the list of good cholesterol foods. It’s high in omega-3 fatty acids, which your body uses to raise your high density, or HDL, cholesterol, while lowering your low density, or LDL, cholesterol. However, be aware that farm raised salmon is much, much less beneficial to your health than wild caught salmon.

Even so, any kind of salmon is better for you than red meat. While I enjoy a steak as much as the next guy, there’s no denying that red meat intake is one of the leading causes of high cholesterol, and in no way belongs on the list of good cholesterol foods.

So now you know what is good cholesterol, it’s time to make some simple changes to your diet.

To find out more about cholesterol go here now.

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