Preventing High Cholesterol
Adopting a healthy lifestyle helps prevent high cholesterol.
- Maintain a healthy weight: Excess body fat affects cholesterol metabolism and makes removing it more challenging for your body.
- Follow a healthy diet: A healthy diet emphasizing soluble fiber, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and omega-3 fatty acids helps prevent high cholesterol. Prioritize fiber-rich foods like legumes (peas, lentils, beans), berries, and oats to prevent high cholesterol. Limit saturated and trans fats, sodium, and added sugars.
- Get regular exercise: Add regular exercise to your routine to prevent high cholesterol. Physical activity is essential for heart health and maintaining a healthy weight.
- Get sufficient sleep: Sleeping less than six hours nightly raises cholesterol. Aim for seven to nine hours of sleep. Sleep helps repair the heart and blood vessels and reduces the risk of heart disease.
- Practice stress management: Engage in stress management techniques like meditation, journaling, yoga, or deep breathing. Stress increases specific hormones like corticosteroids, which cause your body to produce more cholesterol.
- Quit smoking: Smoking raises LDL cholesterol and lowers HDL cholesterol, especially in women.
- Reduce alcohol intake: Limit alcohol to the recommended one standard drink per day for women. Drinking more than this can raise your total cholesterol level.
How to Reduce It
- Eat oats regularly: Oats contain the fiber beta-glucan, which forms a gel-like substance in your body that attracts cholesterol and removes it from the body. A half-cup serving of old-fashioned oats provides 3 grams (g) of beta-glucan, the recommended amount to benefit cholesterol.
- Choose healthier fats: Limit your total fat intake to 25–35% of your daily calories, with less than 7% from saturated fat. On a 2,000-calorie diet, that’s 500–700 calories from fat, and no more than 140 (15g) from saturated fat. Swap saturated fats (from red meat, butter, deep-fried and processed foods) for healthy mono- and polyunsaturated fats from nuts, seeds, and avocados.
- Increase omega-3 intake: Omega-3-rich foods include fatty fish (salmon, mackerel, sardines, and anchovies), walnuts, chia seeds, flax seeds, and hemp seeds. Replace red meat with omega-3-rich fish to help lower LDL cholesterol and triglycerides.
- Eat more beans: Beans like chickpeas, black beans, and kidney beans are packed with soluble fiber and phytochemicals that benefit cholesterol. Regularly eating three-fourths cup to 1 cup of beans lowers LDL cholesterol levels. Try replacing red meat with beans at one meal weekly.
- Add more plant stanols and sterols to your diet: Stanols and sterols are compounds found in whole grains, nuts, beans, lentils, and olive oil that prevent your body from absorbing cholesterol. Aim for 2 g of plant stanols and sterols per day.
- Incorporate some soy foods: Natural soy proteins like tofu, tempeh, soybeans, edamame, and soy milk may have a small cholesterol-lowering effect. Replace deep-fried or processed snacks with edamame or soybeans.
- Consider medication: Statin medications lower cholesterol levels, especially with lifestyle changes.
- Incorporate physical activity: Exercise helps combat the cholesterol increases that may accompany age, perimenopause, and menopause. Regular physical activity lowers LDL cholesterol while raising HDL levels.
- Professional help: Consider working with a registered dietitian nutritionist to help tailor a supportive plan for nutrition and lifestyle changes.
