When it comes to your cholesterol, higher levels of high-density lipoprotein HDL cholesterol — "good" cholesterol — may benefit your heart. HDL cholesterol removes excess fat from your blood, helps keep your arteries clean and clear, and may protect against heart disease, heart attack, and stroke, notes the American Heart Association AHA.
So what's the best way to have a higher HDL cholesterol level at your next medical checkup? Although many people take statin medications to control their cholesterol levels , you can also increase your HDL levels through simple changes in lifestyle.
Many of the habits that are great for your overall health, such as getting regular exercise , can also help to boost HDL. Your cholesterol numbers from a simple blood test provide a measure of your cardiovascular heart health — and can be an early warning sign of heart disease.
Preparing for the holidays? Q : What are the best ways to increase HDL good cholesterol levels? Many studies have found that people with low levels of HDL are at increased risk for heart attacks, strokes, and other complications of arteries diseased by atherosclerosis: that's why we call HDL the "good" cholesterol.
Given that, you'd think that raising HDL levels would reduce a person's risk for atherosclerosis. Unfortunately, despite a lot of research, we don't yet know if that's true, nor how best to raise HDL levels. To continue reading this article, you must log in.
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Some types of HDL are great at plucking cholesterol from LDL and artery walls while other types are indifferent to cholesterol, and some even transfer cholesterol the wrong way — into LDL and cells.
To further complicate matters, different HDL types do more than just carry cholesterol. Under some circumstances, though, they can do just the opposite. Various HDL particles can ease inflammation in artery walls, stimulate production of nitric oxide, a molecule that helps artery walls relax, and help prevent blood clots from forming inside arteries. This diversity of function, and the equivocal evidence for the benefits of raising HDL, keep the spotlight on lowering LDL as part of the first line of defense in the fight against heart disease.
Even so, it is a good idea to try raising HDL when it is low. Genes appear to play the most important role by determining how much HDL cholesterol your body makes and the proportion of different subtypes. Lifestyle choices also affect HDL levels. Smoking, carrying too many pounds, and lack of physical activity tend to lower HDL. So does a diet high in refined carbohydrates white bread, sugars, etc.
Medications such as beta blockers, anabolic steroids, progestins, and benzodiazepines can also depress HDL. Two kinds of medications have traditionally been used to raise HDL cholesterol: niacin, which is also known as vitamin B 3 , and fibrates, such as gemfibrozil Lopid, generic and fenofibrate TriCor, generic.
However, most clinical trials have not shown a direct correlation between raising the HDL cholesterol level and less heart disease, or fewer heart attacks and strokes. The equivocal results have some experts questioning whether the monetary and physical costs of taking niacin or a fibrate are worth the uncertain benefits. What they did have were small increases in blood pressure, as well as more cases of heart failure and procedures to open or bypass a blocked artery.
The trial was stopped early on safety grounds, since volunteers taking a placebo were faring better than those taking torcetrapib. The results torpedoed torcetrapib's chances of becoming a blockbuster drug, something its maker, Pfizer, was hoping for. And they also had some experts questioning across-the-board strategies for boosting HDL levels without paying close attention to the structure and function of the new HDL particles induced by the drug.
Cholesterol guidelines focus on lowering elevated LDL cholesterol first.
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