Lower It!

It's fairly easy to lower your blood cholesterol. Small changes in your eating habits, physical activity, and lifestyle can all help. Your doctor may even prescribe a medication to help lower your cholesterol.

	Watch your caloric intake by eating a wide variety of foods low in saturated fat and cholesterol.
	Eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables every day.
	Eat six or more servings of cereals, breads, pasta and other whole-grain products.
	Eat fish, poultry without skin and leaner cuts of meat instead of fatty ones.
	Eat fat-free or 1% milk dairy products rather than whole-milk dairy products.
	Enjoy 30-60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activities on most (or all) days of the week.
	Maintain a healthy weight.

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Do Physical Activity
A little exercise can go a long way. Visit our Move More section to learn how to safely begin a healthy plan for adding physical activity to your lifestyle.

	Ask your physician or healthcare professional to help you with nutrition and physical activity advice.
	Learn to read food labels so you'll be able to tell how much fat, sodium and other ingredients are in your diet.
	Keep a diary of all your nutrition and physical activity efforts. Seeing your successes written down will encourage you to continue your good habits.
	If you don't feel like you're making progress, talk to your physician and ask why your progress is slow.
	If you're having trouble giving up smoking, ask your doctor about ways to help you quit and stay away from other smokers.
	Become an active participant in making treatment decisions and solving problems that keep you from following the doctor's orders.
	Maintain a healthy weight.

Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs
Unless your cholesterol is dangerously high, it's best to try to reduce it by altering your lifestyle. Drug therapy can be considered for patients who - in spite of adequate dietary therapy, regular physical activity and weight loss - still need more treatment to lower their blood cholesterol levels.

	Age. This includes men 45 years or older, or women 55 years or older.
	Family History. This includes anyone having a father, brother or son with a history of coronary heart disease before age 55, or a mother, sister or daughter with coronary heart disease before age 65.
	Smoking. This includes anyone who smokes or who lives or works every day around people who smoke.
	High Blood Pressure. This includes anyone with a blood pressure of 140/90 mm Hg or higher, measured on two or more occasions.
	HDL Cholesterol. This includes anyone whose HDL cholesterol level is less than 40 mg/dL.
	Diabetes. This includes anyone with a fasting blood sugar of 126 mg/dL or higher.

You can work with your healthcare professional to determine if you need to take cholesterol-lowering drugs in addition to making the lifestyle changes that will reduce your risk for heart disease, heart attack and stroke. It's important when taking medications to follow your healthcare professional's recommendations carefully. When you don't take medicine exactly as prescribed, it can harm you. Without knowing it, you could counteract one medicine by taking it with another. Not taken properly, medicine can create undesirable side effects.

CONTENT SOURCE: http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=514