High levels of bad cholesterol increase the risk for heart attack and stroke. A high level of good cholesterol flushes the bad cholesterol away from your body. START Wellness helps reduces high levels of bad cholesterol.
Your START Wellness Intermittent fasting and water program helps lowering bad cholesterol and increase good cholesterol. It’s good and it’s bad and you can’t live without it. Most of the cholesterol in your body is LDL (also known as low density lipoprotein or bad cholesterol). A high level of LDL can cause a heart attack or a stroke.
One out of every three adults has a high level of LDL, and their number is rising.
Cholesterol is a substance that’s found in all the cells of the body. Your body needs it to protect its nerves and make healthy cells and hormones. 75% of your total cholesterol is produced by your liver. 25% comes from animal food products you eat like meat, cheese, and eggs.
Myth Buster: There is absolutely no correlation of dietary cholesterol to blood cholesterol. This was proved in the late 1950’s by the Framingham Study and then later published by Dr. Michael Eades.
Cholesterol does not dissolve in the blood, so it gets mixed with proteins called a lipoprotein. There are two types of lipoproteins that carry cholesterol throughout the body:
- LDL (low-density lipoproteins) this is the bad cholesterol. High LDL level leads to a buildup of cholesterol in your arteries called plaque. This causes the inside of the arteries to narrow over time leading to atherosclerosis. Blood carries oxygen to the heart and if it isn’t able to get enough oxygen, this causes angina (chest pain), or if the blood flow is completely blocked, a heart attack.
- HDL (high-density lipoproteins) is the good cholesterol. HDL carries LDL away from the arteries and back to the liver, where the LDL is broken down and passed from the body. HDL cholesterol doesn’t completely eliminate LDL cholesterol. Only one-third to one-fourth of blood cholesterol is carried by HDL.
When we talk about lipoprotein we include:
- Total cholesterol
- LDL
- HDL and
- Triglycerides (TGs) which are the most common type of fat in the body. Excess calories, alcohol, or sugar from our diet are converted into triglycerides and stored as fat throughout the body.
The number of people who should be on cholesterol-lowering meds is on the rise. According to the CDC, the average total cholesterol of Americans over age 20 is 192 mg/dl. This is concerning, considering that a borderline high cholesterol level is 200 mg/dl.
So, there are factors that you cannot control like:
- Age and Sex: Younger women have lower cholesterol than men, but after menopause, their LDL is higher.
- Genetics: 75% of cholesterol is due to genes, and 25% is due to diet. When you eat foods rich in cholesterol, your body gets rid of the excess. How much cholesterol you get rid of, depends on your genes. Although high cholesterol can be inherited, often the result of healthy lifestyle choices make it preventable and treatable.
- Medications: Some drugs like steroids, blood pressure drugs, and AIDS drugs, can raise LDL levels.
- Medical conditions: Disease like diabetes, liver or kidney disease, polycystic ovary, pregnancy syndrome, or the underactive thyroid gland can raise your LDL level.
- Race: African Americans have higher cholesterol levels than white people.
And, there are factors that you can and should control. Your START Wellness intermittent fasting and water program helps you transition to a healthy lifestyle and helps reduce your cholesterol drastically if it is very high.
The following can help reduce cholesterol levels:
Bad habits
Cigarette smoking damages the walls of your blood vessels, making it easier to accumulate fat deposits. Cigarette smoking lowers your HDL cholesterol. Since HDL helps to remove LDL from your arteries, if you have less HDL, that can contribute to you having a higher LDL level. According to a 2013 study, smokers typically have lower HDL cholesterol than nonsmokers. Research shows quitting smoking can increase HDL.
Control your weight
Being overweight tends to raise your LDL level, lower your HDL level, and increase your total cholesterol level. Having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or greater puts you at risk of high cholesterol.
Regular physical activity
Sedentarism can lead to weight gain, which can raise your LDL level. Exercise boosts your body’s HDL while increasing the size of the particles that make up your LDL, which makes it less harmful.
A study of women with type 2 diabetes followed three weeks of high-intensity interval training. This boosted the subject’s HDL levels by a stagerring 21 percent and lowered triglycerides by 18 percent. Another study found that men who jogged and then ran, at a high intensity for equal periods of time, saw significant improvement in their HDL levels over eight weeks.
These studies showed that in order to boost your HDL you need to oscillate exercise between medium-intensity and high-intensity levels regularly.
What about diet?
Again, there is no correlation when it comes to dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol, however maintaining a wholefoods diet with the least amount of refined sugar can help in weight loss which in turn can help reduce LDL and increase HDL cholesterol in the body.
As a further explanation, 80% of the cholesterol in our blood is generated by the liver, hence reducing dietary cholesterol will not reduce blood cholesterol levels. So, eating cholesterol does not raise blood cholesterol.
The higher the HDL level is, the lower the LDL level goes. But this is just an association. HDL, again, is just a marker for a disease.
TGs are markers of disease, but they do not cause it. During your START Wellness intermittent fasting and water program, triglycerides get broken down into free fatty acids and glycerol. The body uses these fatty acids for energy. During START Wellness fasting, there is up to a 30% decrease in TG levels. But, research also proves reducing carbohydrates seems to be the main factor that reduces TG levels, and not dietary-fat or cholesterol.
A good point
When you are on a low-fat diet, you are feeding your body sugar instead of fat. So, the body doesn’t burn fat, it burns sugar. When you are on a Low-carb diet, on START Wellness, your body will adjust to burn fat.
During fasting, LDL levels go down about 25%. This happens because during fasting the body switches from burning sugar to burning fat for energy. The decrease in TGs synthesis results in a decrease in VLDL (Very Low-Density Lipoprotein) secretion from the liver, which results in lowered LDL.
The way to lower LDL is to make your body burn it off, and the most effective way is through your START Wellness intermittent fasting and water program.
In just 7 days you’ll FEEL the change.
In 30 days you’ll BE the change.
All you have to do is START!
Learn more about START Wellness – Best Intermittent Fasting & Weight Loss App 2021
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