Healthy Diet
Food choices play a vital role in determining your health.
Foods high in saturated or trans fats may seem far too delicious and tempting to resist. However, in the long run, your taste buds could lead you on a higher cholesterol journey, which you might not be willing to take.
Here are some tips to improve your overall diet:
- Reduce your saturated fat intake
Red meat and other full-fat dairy products are some of the most common saturated fat sources. These food sources can result in increasing the total cholesterol in your body.
- Eliminate trans fat from your diet
Trans fat is also known as 'partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.' Some of the commonly used trans fat food sources around us are cookies, cakes, and crackers bought from stores. Trans fat can also elevate the total cholesterol in your body.
Medication
Sometimes diet and exercise are not enough to manage your cholesterol levels. Nearly 1 in 3 U.S. adults have high cholesterol; that's 71 million Americans!1
Statins are the first line of defence doctors use to help manage high cholesterol.
Statins are a medication that helps lower your LDL-C (bad cholesterol), reduce triglycerides and increase HDL-C (good cholesterol) levels.
After analyzing your blood report and examining your medical history, your doctor will let you know whether you need a statin or not. Always consult your doctor before taking any medication.
How statins could be helpful
1 CDC. Vital signs: prevalence, treatment, and control of high levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. United States, 1999-2002 and 2005-2008. MMWR. 2011;60(4):109-14