National Cholesterol Month is an annual event set up by The Heart UK.
Aim: to raise awareness of the importance of maintaining a healthy cholesterol level.
What is Cholesterol?
Cholesterol is a type of fat that is needed for many of our essential bodily processes, such as maintaining cell structure, creating bile in the stomach, and the creation of vitamin D and steroid hormones in the body.
You naturally create cholesterol in the body, but can also get it from foods. Your body keeps your cholesterol levels in check, balancing what you get from your diet to what your body makes. However, with a consistent unhealthy lifestyle, you can upset this balance, resulting in high levels of cholesterol within the body.
Having high cholesterol leads to increased risk of high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke.
Diet, exercise levels, genetics, smoking status etc. all have an impact on your cholesterol levels. Many people don’t understand how their lifestyle habits may be negatively impacting their cholesterol levels and thus their overall health, which is why it is important to raise awareness throughout October.
- Regular exercise is a major part of looking after your cholesterol levels, keeping your heart healthy and helping to prevent heart disease.
- Consume a diet rich in unsaturated fats, including oily fish, avocado and nuts and seeds in particular walnuts. Click here for more information on dietary fats.
- Include plenty of fruits and vegetables as well as legumes and pulses, such as lentils and peas as they contain a particular type of fibre that can blocks some absorption of cholesterol from the intestines into the blood stream.
- For those with high cholesterol- foods with added sterols and stanols which are plant chemicals can be beneficial. Oats and Barley are grains which are rich in beta glucan that can also help lower cholesterol.
