Over half of UK adults have raised cholesterol which can lead to heart disease, we all need some cholesterol in our blood to stay healthy, but too much can lead to serious health problems such as heart attacks and strokes.
Anyone can have high cholesterol, even if you are young, slim, eat well and exercise. That’s because high cholesterol can be caused by different things, including your genes. however there are many diet and lifestyle changes that can help lower your cholesterol:
- Being active is a major part of looking after your cholesterol levels, keeping your heart healthy and helping to prevent heart disease.
- When it comes to diet there are some foods you should try to eat every day to help lower cholesterol levels, these include foods rich in unsaturated fats such as vegetable oils like rapeseed, nut and seed oils. Oily fish, avocado and nuts and seeds in particular walnuts.
- Include plenty of fruits and vegetables in your diet, pulses such as peas and lentils in particular- there contain a certain fibre that can block some cholesterol from being absorbed 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.
For more information and specific cholesterol lowering recipes click here.
