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What can you do to improve your cholesterol levels?

# Reduce fat in your diet
Buy the leanest cuts of meat you can find. Switch to low fat cottage cheese and yogurt, reduced fat hard cheeses and skim or 1 percent milk.

# Eat no more than four egg yolks a week
An average egg yolk contains 213 milligrams of cholesterol!

# Eliminate fried foods
Don’t fry foods. Roast, bake, broil, grill or poach them instead. Use fat free marinades or basting with liquids like wine, tomato or lemon juice.

# Eat vegetables and complex carbohydrates Lowest fat foods of all are vegetables, fruits, grains (rice, barley and pasta), beans and legumes. Try substituting some of these for meat and high fat dairy products. Use tomato base sauces instead of cream base. Use lemon juice, low sodium soy sauce or herbs to season vegetables.

# Lose weight
If you are overweight, the chances are almost 100 hat you have a problem with high cholesterol. Eating about three ounces of walnuts a day is shown to decrease blood cholesterol levels by 10ore than an already low fat, low cholesterol diet.

# Eat chocolate
Aha! Studies indicate that the fat in chocolate is stearic acid and has no effect on cholesterol levels. The chocolate does not increase LDL and could raise HDL a wee bit.

# Drink fruit juices
Apparently some of the non-alcoholic ingredients in red wine raises HDL and suppresses the body from producing LDL. Purple grape juice works the same way. The LDL lowering effect of red wine and grape juice comes from a compound that grapes produce normally to resist mold.

# Eat garlic
Cholesterol lowering effects of garlic have been demonstrated repeatedly in people with normal and high cholesterol. It also seems to raise the HDL levels as well.

# Take niacin - carefully
It is proven effective for lowering LDL and raising HDL. A dose high enough to lower cholesterol can cause extremely high blood sugar or liver damage.

# Take vitamin E
Studies indicate that vitamin E may have a positive impact on lowering cholesterol when taken in fairly large quantities - up to 800 IU per day.

# Take Calcium
One study indicates that when 56 people took a calcium carbonate supplement, their total cholesterol went down 4 percent and their HDL increased 4 percent. A study of people who took more than 60 milligrams of vitamin C per day (60 milligrams is the RDA) had highest HDL levels.

# Quit smoking
Smoking promotes the development of atherosclerosis.

# Reduce sugar intake
Many people don’t realize that sugar affects cholesterol and definitely affects triglycerides. The mineral chromium which helps to stabilize blood sugar, can also raise the level of HDL. 100 mcg of chromium three times daily can help to improve your cholesterol levels.

# Exercise regularly
There is positive evidence that exercise can lower LDL cholesterol and boost HDL cholesterol.