High Cholesterol Prevention

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Eating a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, getting plenty of exercise, managing your weight, and not smoking can help prevent high cholesterol. Because cholesterol levels tend to increase with age, paying attention to diet and exercise is particularly important as you get older.

Remember that high cholesterol is just one of the things that increase your risk for coronary artery disease (CAD) and heart attack. Controlling other health problems, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, is also important to reduce your overall risk.

Lifestyle Changes
If high cholesterol runs in your family, you may not be able to reduce your cholesterol level by following a strict diet and exercise routine only. In this case, you may need to take medicine.

As part of the treatment for high cholesterol, your doctor may recommend using the Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC) recommended by the National Cholesterol Education Program of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

These lifestyle changes recommend:

Following the TLC cholesterol-lowering diet.
Getting plenty of exercise.
Losing weight, if needed.

The TLC diet is low in saturated fat and cholesterol. Less than 7% of your daily calories should come from saturated fat, and you should limit your cholesterol to no more than 200 milligrams per day.

Foods that contain saturated fat include most animal products, such as meat, poultry, shellfish, milk, cheese, and eggs. Other examples include butter, margarine, sour cream, salad dressings, marinades, mayonnaise, shortening, and many snack foods and desserts. Many snack foods contain a lot of saturated fat and trans fat (hydrogenated oils). Doughnuts, french fries, and commercial baked goods like cookies contain trans fat.

The TLC plan also recommends increasing the amount of fiber you eat and adding plant stanols and sterols to your diet.

Plant sterols are found in small quantities in many fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, cereals, legumes, and other plant sources. Plant stanols come from some of the same sources. Vegetable oils, for example, contain both plant sterols and stanols. You can also find them in some salad dressings and margarines, such as Benecol and Take Control. They are safe for children who have genetic high cholesterol, but pregnant women need to avoid them.