If your diet gave you high cholesterol, your food choices can lower it too. Eating fatty, fried, high calorie foods sends your cholesterol levels through the roof, especially if you make a steady diet of these unhealthy foods. If you have high cholesterol, you are not alone - the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (1) says that 17 percent of the adults in the United States has high cholesterol.
The first step is to understand the role cholesterol plays in your body. You may be surprised to learn that cholesterol is essential to every cell in your body. Cholesterol is important to cell membranes, metabolism, and for the synthesis of hormones. Cholesterol is so important, in fact, that your liver would make cholesterol if you did not consume any foods containing cholesterol.
Most people in the United States consume much more cholesterol than their bodies need. Cholesterol is a fatty, wax-like substance that can build up in your bloodstream and increase your risk for heart disease. High cholesterol contributes greatly to the high rates of heart disease among Americans.
Many people try to rely on medications to lower cholesterol levels artificially. These cholesterol-lowering drugs, known as statins, work by blocking a substance your liver needs to make cholesterol. While some find these drugs beneficial, others worry about the associated risks of statins, which include cognitive impairment, increased risk for high blood sugar levels and the development of type 2 diabetes, and muscle damage, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (2).
Once you know how to lower cholesterol using foods, you can keep your cholesterol levels under control without resorting to dangerous drugs.