How to Lower Cholesterol Without Drugs

Lowering cholesterol is an important part of heart disease prevention. It is important to understand why your cholesterol might be high in the first place. Some causes of high LDL (bad) and low HDL (good) cholesterol levels including:

• Unhealthy diet: Too much saturated fat and trans fat in your diet can increase your LDL cholesterol levels.
• Excess weight: Being overweight can lead to higher LDL cholesterol levels and lower HDL cholesterol levels.
• Lack of exercise: Low physical activity decreases HDL cholesterol. 
• Smoking: Smoking lowers HDL cholesterol and increases the risk of heart disease.

If you want to reduce high LDL cholesterol and increase low HDL cholesterol, then try optimize each of the above factors. Here is how:

Eat a Healthy Diet

Improving your food choices can have a profound impact on reducing LDL cholesterol. Remember that saturated fats and trans fats are major causes of high cholesterol.

• Avoid saturated fat which typically comes from animal products including meats (including pork, beef, lamb, poultry with skin), butter, cream, cheese and other whole milk dairy products.
• Avoid trans fat which is found in processed foods including stick margarine, crackers, and baked goods.

One proven way to lower cholesterol is replacing butter and coconut oil (which have high levels of saturated fat) with healthier fats such as olive, corn, canola and safflower oil.

Lose Some Weight

Countless clinical studies have demonstrated that losing even small amounts of weight can lower LDL cholesterol. To lose weight, you must either reduce calories (from your diet) and/or increase calories that your burn (through exercise for example).

Remember that one pound is approximately 3,500 calories. To successfully lose weight, most people need to decrease their daily caloric intake by 500 calories in order to lose approximately 1 pound per week.

Increased Physical Activity

Physical activity has many proven benefits including weight loss, reducing blood pressure and decreasing heart disease risk. In fact, according to the American Heart Association, 40 minutes of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise three or four times per week can reduce cholesterol. Some examples of cholesterol-reducing physical activities include brisk walking, dancing and swimming.

Quitting Smoking

Stopping smoking can lead to increased HDL levels within three weeks and also reduces heart attack risk. Another benefit of stopping smoking is improved lung function, which will allow you to increase physical activity levels.

Ready To Lower Your LDL Cholesterol*? Piper Biosciences Can Help.

There are several ways to improve your cholesterol levels, including losing weight and improving your diet, increasing physical activity and stopping smoking. Adding up to 2 grams of plant sterols to your diet each day can also help reduce LDL cholesterol by 5-15% within several weeks*. One convenient solution is the Piper Biosciences Cholesterol Wellness Kit which features fruit-flavored gummies containing plant sterols in convenient daily dose packaging.