Boost your HDL to protect your heart:
Boost your HDL to protect your heart:
Welcome to our health & self help blog.
In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.
Today's post: Friday, 8-11-2006
Boost your HDL to protect your heart:
Recently, researchers have found that having high levels of HDL cholesterol is MORE protective of your heart than having low LDL levels.
And, having low HDL levels is more predictive of heart problems etc than having high LDL levels.
Having HDL levels of 40 & under is now considered high risk.
Having HDL levels of 60 & over is considered desirable & protective.
And, having considerably higher HDL is better & has been found most often in people who are unusually long-lived.
In recent years, mine has always been over 70; & it was 95 I think when I had it tested last.
And, I considered simply listing the things I do that I believe produce this effect.
But, I decided to check online for sources.
I found wonderful stuff. It seems researchers have confirmed all the things you would have otherwise had to trust me on.
The things you are about to read are EXACTLY the things I’ve done to keep my own HDL levels high.
So, I confidently predict that if you do them all, you’ll see very positive increases your tested levels of HDL also.
(Important note.
If you have heart disease or think you might already have it, do the food & supplement steps first & use a very gradual & somewhat lower intensity exercise program until you’ve got your HDL over 60.
This is particularly important if you are over 50 & have not exercised much at all recently.
At that point, you can gradually be a bit more aggressive in your intensity on your exercise & it will probably be safe for you.
And, our next post will cover a way to do vigorous aerobic exercise that produces fitness faster than the way most people do it; & Dr Al Sears says it also is much, much safer than the way most people do it.)
Here are the two sources for effective ways to boost your HDL that I found online today & my comments.
By Gabe Mirkin, MD on www.drmirkin.com
"Avoid refined carbohydrates -- sugar, flour, white rice and milled corn. Foods that cause a spike in blood sugar drop your HDL cholesterol. You raise HDL by exercising and avoiding refined carbohydrates.
To raise HDL cholesterol, run at least seven miles a week or burn at least 1200 calories with exercise per week.
Lose weight. For every pound of fat lost, expect a one percent rise in HDL.
Don't smoke. A study at Vanderbilt University showed that within just one week of quitting smoking, HDL levels increased by seven points."
Our comments:
1. Avoid ANY food or drink that has high fructose corn syrup in it.
This stuff both tends to spike blood sugar - and, it tends to make you fat, since you do NOT feel less hungry after eating or drinking it.
So, avoiding it totally helps boost your HDL's by helping you eat & drink things that have less impact on spiking your blood sugar --
-- and, it helps you avoid gaining excess fat or to lose it & keep it off.
So, if Dr Mirkin is correct, avoiding high fructose corn syrup will increase your HDL levels & avoid having them go DOWN. And, it does so in TWO of the ways he recommends.
2. Burning at least 1200 calories in your exercise program each week has been proven to not just boost your HDL levels, it boosts the fraction that is most valuable & protects your heat best.
And, doing 1500 calories or more of relatively vigorous exercise each week is even better.
Dr Peter Wood at Stanford did this research many years ago. He & his staff at Stanford did sophisticated testing of HDL levels in this research.
In addition, doing 1500 calories or more of relatively vigorous exercise each week has recently been shown to reduce, or help you lose or not get, excess abdominal, or tummy, fat.
Since that's the kind of body fat that is most likely to induce heart disease, this strikes me as connected the effect on keeping your levels of the most health enhancing HDL fraction high.
Dr Wood studied runners; but Nordic Track, walking on an incline on a treadmill, using an elliptical trainer, or using a stepping exerciser will work just as well.
3. In addition to smoking lowering your HDL's significantly, I remember reading that separate research has been shown that the remaining HDL in smokers is less effective in keeping your blood vessels clean & smooth than the HDL in nonsmokers.
Few smokers know it, but smoking kills far more smokers each year with heart disease & stroke than cancer does.
And, of course, this suggests that making a very strong effort to avoid second hand smoke will help you keep your HDL levels up.
From www.loweringcholesterol.net,
"Raising HDL or "good" cholesterol was not a priority until a few years ago. Most studies have focused on how lowering LDL or "bad" cholesterol that can reduce the risk or coronary heart disease. But in the past few years, researchers have identified that HDL acted as an independent factor and was also critical in the overall health of your heart.
The National Cholesterol Education Program's new guidelines now recognize that low HDL levels as a strong independent risk factor for coronary artery disease.
From the research we know that HDL is a complex molecule made up of lipids, cholesterol, and protein. The way it works is that HDL acts as much like a bottom feeder of a fish tank. It cleans off the walls of blood vessels, thus removing excess cholesterol, LDL. The HDL then carries this cholesterol to the liver where it is processed.
Doctors still focus strongly on lowering LDL but are now including recommendations that raising HDL is another important factor to reduce risk of heart disease.
If you have had your cholesterol levels checked and your HDL is less than 40, you should discuss with your doctor ways in which to increase the HDL level. Again, HDL level above 60 is ideal."
"According to the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP), Niacin or vitamin B3 is the treatment of choice for normalizing the blood lipid levels. Several double-blind placebo-controlled studies have found that niacin increased HDL (good cholesterol) by 30% or more while reducing total cholesterol by 10-25% and triglycerides by as much as 50%.[1],[2],[3],[4],[5]
A common side effect of niacin is flushing which is the result of blood vessels opening wide.
However, another form of Niacin called Inositol Hexanicotinate (IH) or "No-Flush Niacin" is proven as an effective and safer alternative to niacin.[6]
In one study, Welsh and Eade reported that inositol hexanicotinate was more effective than niacin in regulating cholesterol levels."
"Ten human volunteers were given 500 mg of curcumin for seven days during a controlled trial at Amala Cancer Research Centre in India.
After seven days, they noted a 29% increase in good cholesterol (HDL) and a reduction of 11.6% total cholesterol. Lipid peroxidation was also reduced by 33%"
"Chromium (as Polynicotinate)
In a 2000 randomized controlled trial at King Abdulaziz University, 44 adults were given 200mg of chromium or a placebo was given in a double blind cross over study during 8 weeks resulted in decreasing triglycerides while increasing the mean high-density lipoprotein (HDL) significantly.[1] Another study conducted at Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Israel, published in Metabolism in July 1992 reported that 76 patients who had heart disease were treated with 250 mcg of chromium increased their HDL level greatly.[2] In a 1991 study, 63 men at University of North Carolina suffering from hypertension and taking beta-blockers were studied. (Beta blockers are known to lower HDL and raise LDL cholesterol levels.) Chromium supplements increased HDL cholesterol levels by an average of nearly 6 points, a 16 percent increase. No side effects were observed. According to Harvey Simon, MD of Harvard Medical School, a 6-point increase in HDL, which was achieved in the chromium trial, should reduce the risk of heart attack by about 20 percent.[3]"
"Exercise: Although not everyone can run, burning between 1,200 and 1,500 calories each week doing aerobic exercise can have dramatic results. Not only is exercising a wonderful way to keep your heart healthy, it also helps lose weight, which is an additional benefit. By losing 10 pounds of excess weight, according to Kokkinos, "That's where you see significant increases in your HDL cholesterol."
Avoid Trans Fatty Acids: Avoid trans fatty acid containing foods such as French fries, cookies, cakes and many of the fried fast foods.
Minimize Carbohydrates: Minimize carbohydrates by avoiding sugar, flour, potatoes and white rice. Studies prove that HDL level drops dramatically when blood sugar is spiked by carbohydrates."
"HDL or Good Cholesterol Foods
Red Wine: Drinking red wine is yet another option as long as it is consumed within reason. "There are antioxidants contained in red wines such as cabernet sauvignon, Merlot, and pinot noir, that help slow down the oxidation of HDL and LDL cholesterol", according to Vincent Rifici of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. What was shown is not that the HDL was higher than those not drinking, but that the HDL contained higher levels of several types of blood fats, thus giving the positive result. There is still a lot more research required but this could prove to be a wonderful option.
Orange Juice: There was one specific study conducted at the University of Western Ontario in Canada where 25 students drank orange juice every day for four week. The results were amazing. HDL was raised an astounding 21%.
The individual leading this study, Elzbieta Kurowska, stated this increase might have been caused by the flavonoid in the orange juice.
Beans: Kidney and red beans are a wonderful choice for raising HDL. These foods are low-glycemic carbohydrates that during digestion do not cause insulin spikes. Studies conducted where people ate foods rich in low-glycemic carbohydrate measure with the highest level of HDL.
Fish: Fish eaten several times a week can also be beneficial in raising HDL since it contains omega-3 fatty acids. This fish would include sardines, salmon, sea bass, herring, etc. If you do not like to eat fish, fish oil can be used as a supplement although the benefit takes much longer.
Olive Oil: Use oils higher in mono-unsaturated fats, such as olive oil or canola oil. Including 1-2 teaspoons of olive or canola oil with each meal would be sufficient.
Oat bran: Lowers cholesterol and LDL and raises HDL. In one study, two ounces of oat bran per day was associated with a 16% lowering of LDL and, after 3 months, an increase in HDL of as much as 15% (JAMA. 1991. 285. 1833-1839).
Onions: Some research suggests that half of raw onion/day may raise HDL as much as 30%."
My comments:
This stuff works !! I do virtually everything on these two lists; & my HDL is over 90.
In the second source, I did some paragraphing to make it a bit easier to read; but the quotes are exact.
I’m very positively impressed with both these sources & recommend them for the information content.
The second one sells some of the supplements listed. I do not know how the ones they sell compare to those in health food stores or how good their delivery process is; but if their information quality is indicative, it probably is good.
Here’s my comments on the second source.
You can begin to get some serious side effects if you take 1,000 mg of niacin or more a day. And, with the time release form, this can happen at more than 500 mg a day.
For exactly that reason, I take 300 mg a day of niacin just after breakfast as I find this produces far less flush then on an empty stomach. And, I take 300 mg of inositol hexaniacinate at breakfast & just after dinner.
Also, one of the reasons taking chromium polynicotinate also helps is that has both chromium which helps prevent blood sugar spikes and a form of niacin that also is flush free. I take 200 mg of that with breakfast.
I’ve been taking 400 mg a day of curcumin also just after dinner. Each of the three lipid effects this source reports is heart protective by itself. That curcumin does all three is outstanding.
Interestingly, I got started taking it because separate research done on the population of India where curcumin is found in high amounts in the curries they eat, suggests very strongly that taking curcumin or eating that much of it in curry tends to be an effective way to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
Most of the foods this source recommends are in our previous posts as Superfoods.
Olive oil has been found to raise HDL levels slightly or leave them alone & to lower LDL levels considerably.
It’s no accident that the populations that eat the most olive oil also have the least heart attacks.
Even more important is to eat ONLY olive oil. Oils like corn oil or safflower oil when used in cooking instead of butter or lard will lower LDL’s too. But, unlike olive oil, they also LOWER your HDL.
Also, canola oil is high in omega 6 oils compared to olive oil & I believe is much less desirable health wise & has less of a positive effect on HDL’s. So, I don’t recommend it. Although, it does have some omega 3 oils that are beneficial, I think that eating high omega 3 fish &/or taking omega 3 supplements is a better source of that.
And, eating walnuts also provides plant based omega 3’s & has other health benefits also.
Drinking red wine & dark beer does boost your HDL levels. And, drinking two seven drinks a week seems correlated with the best health results.
(And, you can drink grape juice & the resveratrol red wine has. Drinking green tea & eating lots of high oxidant fruits & vegetables & taking antioxidant vitamins & supplements also helps & is heart protective.)
(Drinking 10 to 13 drinks a week tends to produce some health problems. And, 14 or more tends to make you fat & tends to trigger diseases & can even damage your brain & lower your sex drive.)
Also, on inositol hexaniacinate, when I added 300 mg of it twice a day, my HDL went well above 90, which I had never been tested at before. So, between my own test results & the second source above, I can strongly recommend it for boosting your HDL.
Overall, this is a great list of effective ways to boost your HDL’s.
I hope these things work as well for you as they have for me.
Welcome to our health & self help blog.
In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.
Today's post: Friday, 8-11-2006
Boost your HDL to protect your heart:
Recently, researchers have found that having high levels of HDL cholesterol is MORE protective of your heart than having low LDL levels.
And, having low HDL levels is more predictive of heart problems etc than having high LDL levels.
Having HDL levels of 40 & under is now considered high risk.
Having HDL levels of 60 & over is considered desirable & protective.
And, having considerably higher HDL is better & has been found most often in people who are unusually long-lived.
In recent years, mine has always been over 70; & it was 95 I think when I had it tested last.
And, I considered simply listing the things I do that I believe produce this effect.
But, I decided to check online for sources.
I found wonderful stuff. It seems researchers have confirmed all the things you would have otherwise had to trust me on.
The things you are about to read are EXACTLY the things I’ve done to keep my own HDL levels high.
So, I confidently predict that if you do them all, you’ll see very positive increases your tested levels of HDL also.
(Important note.
If you have heart disease or think you might already have it, do the food & supplement steps first & use a very gradual & somewhat lower intensity exercise program until you’ve got your HDL over 60.
This is particularly important if you are over 50 & have not exercised much at all recently.
At that point, you can gradually be a bit more aggressive in your intensity on your exercise & it will probably be safe for you.
And, our next post will cover a way to do vigorous aerobic exercise that produces fitness faster than the way most people do it; & Dr Al Sears says it also is much, much safer than the way most people do it.)
Here are the two sources for effective ways to boost your HDL that I found online today & my comments.
By Gabe Mirkin, MD on www.drmirkin.com
"Avoid refined carbohydrates -- sugar, flour, white rice and milled corn. Foods that cause a spike in blood sugar drop your HDL cholesterol. You raise HDL by exercising and avoiding refined carbohydrates.
To raise HDL cholesterol, run at least seven miles a week or burn at least 1200 calories with exercise per week.
Lose weight. For every pound of fat lost, expect a one percent rise in HDL.
Don't smoke. A study at Vanderbilt University showed that within just one week of quitting smoking, HDL levels increased by seven points."
Our comments:
1. Avoid ANY food or drink that has high fructose corn syrup in it.
This stuff both tends to spike blood sugar - and, it tends to make you fat, since you do NOT feel less hungry after eating or drinking it.
So, avoiding it totally helps boost your HDL's by helping you eat & drink things that have less impact on spiking your blood sugar --
-- and, it helps you avoid gaining excess fat or to lose it & keep it off.
So, if Dr Mirkin is correct, avoiding high fructose corn syrup will increase your HDL levels & avoid having them go DOWN. And, it does so in TWO of the ways he recommends.
2. Burning at least 1200 calories in your exercise program each week has been proven to not just boost your HDL levels, it boosts the fraction that is most valuable & protects your heat best.
And, doing 1500 calories or more of relatively vigorous exercise each week is even better.
Dr Peter Wood at Stanford did this research many years ago. He & his staff at Stanford did sophisticated testing of HDL levels in this research.
In addition, doing 1500 calories or more of relatively vigorous exercise each week has recently been shown to reduce, or help you lose or not get, excess abdominal, or tummy, fat.
Since that's the kind of body fat that is most likely to induce heart disease, this strikes me as connected the effect on keeping your levels of the most health enhancing HDL fraction high.
Dr Wood studied runners; but Nordic Track, walking on an incline on a treadmill, using an elliptical trainer, or using a stepping exerciser will work just as well.
3. In addition to smoking lowering your HDL's significantly, I remember reading that separate research has been shown that the remaining HDL in smokers is less effective in keeping your blood vessels clean & smooth than the HDL in nonsmokers.
Few smokers know it, but smoking kills far more smokers each year with heart disease & stroke than cancer does.
And, of course, this suggests that making a very strong effort to avoid second hand smoke will help you keep your HDL levels up.
From www.loweringcholesterol.net,
"Raising HDL or "good" cholesterol was not a priority until a few years ago. Most studies have focused on how lowering LDL or "bad" cholesterol that can reduce the risk or coronary heart disease. But in the past few years, researchers have identified that HDL acted as an independent factor and was also critical in the overall health of your heart.
The National Cholesterol Education Program's new guidelines now recognize that low HDL levels as a strong independent risk factor for coronary artery disease.
From the research we know that HDL is a complex molecule made up of lipids, cholesterol, and protein. The way it works is that HDL acts as much like a bottom feeder of a fish tank. It cleans off the walls of blood vessels, thus removing excess cholesterol, LDL. The HDL then carries this cholesterol to the liver where it is processed.
Doctors still focus strongly on lowering LDL but are now including recommendations that raising HDL is another important factor to reduce risk of heart disease.
If you have had your cholesterol levels checked and your HDL is less than 40, you should discuss with your doctor ways in which to increase the HDL level. Again, HDL level above 60 is ideal."
"According to the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP), Niacin or vitamin B3 is the treatment of choice for normalizing the blood lipid levels. Several double-blind placebo-controlled studies have found that niacin increased HDL (good cholesterol) by 30% or more while reducing total cholesterol by 10-25% and triglycerides by as much as 50%.[1],[2],[3],[4],[5]
A common side effect of niacin is flushing which is the result of blood vessels opening wide.
However, another form of Niacin called Inositol Hexanicotinate (IH) or "No-Flush Niacin" is proven as an effective and safer alternative to niacin.[6]
In one study, Welsh and Eade reported that inositol hexanicotinate was more effective than niacin in regulating cholesterol levels."
"Ten human volunteers were given 500 mg of curcumin for seven days during a controlled trial at Amala Cancer Research Centre in India.
After seven days, they noted a 29% increase in good cholesterol (HDL) and a reduction of 11.6% total cholesterol. Lipid peroxidation was also reduced by 33%"
"Chromium (as Polynicotinate)
In a 2000 randomized controlled trial at King Abdulaziz University, 44 adults were given 200mg of chromium or a placebo was given in a double blind cross over study during 8 weeks resulted in decreasing triglycerides while increasing the mean high-density lipoprotein (HDL) significantly.[1] Another study conducted at Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Israel, published in Metabolism in July 1992 reported that 76 patients who had heart disease were treated with 250 mcg of chromium increased their HDL level greatly.[2] In a 1991 study, 63 men at University of North Carolina suffering from hypertension and taking beta-blockers were studied. (Beta blockers are known to lower HDL and raise LDL cholesterol levels.) Chromium supplements increased HDL cholesterol levels by an average of nearly 6 points, a 16 percent increase. No side effects were observed. According to Harvey Simon, MD of Harvard Medical School, a 6-point increase in HDL, which was achieved in the chromium trial, should reduce the risk of heart attack by about 20 percent.[3]"
"Exercise: Although not everyone can run, burning between 1,200 and 1,500 calories each week doing aerobic exercise can have dramatic results. Not only is exercising a wonderful way to keep your heart healthy, it also helps lose weight, which is an additional benefit. By losing 10 pounds of excess weight, according to Kokkinos, "That's where you see significant increases in your HDL cholesterol."
Avoid Trans Fatty Acids: Avoid trans fatty acid containing foods such as French fries, cookies, cakes and many of the fried fast foods.
Minimize Carbohydrates: Minimize carbohydrates by avoiding sugar, flour, potatoes and white rice. Studies prove that HDL level drops dramatically when blood sugar is spiked by carbohydrates."
"HDL or Good Cholesterol Foods
Red Wine: Drinking red wine is yet another option as long as it is consumed within reason. "There are antioxidants contained in red wines such as cabernet sauvignon, Merlot, and pinot noir, that help slow down the oxidation of HDL and LDL cholesterol", according to Vincent Rifici of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. What was shown is not that the HDL was higher than those not drinking, but that the HDL contained higher levels of several types of blood fats, thus giving the positive result. There is still a lot more research required but this could prove to be a wonderful option.
Orange Juice: There was one specific study conducted at the University of Western Ontario in Canada where 25 students drank orange juice every day for four week. The results were amazing. HDL was raised an astounding 21%.
The individual leading this study, Elzbieta Kurowska, stated this increase might have been caused by the flavonoid in the orange juice.
Beans: Kidney and red beans are a wonderful choice for raising HDL. These foods are low-glycemic carbohydrates that during digestion do not cause insulin spikes. Studies conducted where people ate foods rich in low-glycemic carbohydrate measure with the highest level of HDL.
Fish: Fish eaten several times a week can also be beneficial in raising HDL since it contains omega-3 fatty acids. This fish would include sardines, salmon, sea bass, herring, etc. If you do not like to eat fish, fish oil can be used as a supplement although the benefit takes much longer.
Olive Oil: Use oils higher in mono-unsaturated fats, such as olive oil or canola oil. Including 1-2 teaspoons of olive or canola oil with each meal would be sufficient.
Oat bran: Lowers cholesterol and LDL and raises HDL. In one study, two ounces of oat bran per day was associated with a 16% lowering of LDL and, after 3 months, an increase in HDL of as much as 15% (JAMA. 1991. 285. 1833-1839).
Onions: Some research suggests that half of raw onion/day may raise HDL as much as 30%."
My comments:
This stuff works !! I do virtually everything on these two lists; & my HDL is over 90.
In the second source, I did some paragraphing to make it a bit easier to read; but the quotes are exact.
I’m very positively impressed with both these sources & recommend them for the information content.
The second one sells some of the supplements listed. I do not know how the ones they sell compare to those in health food stores or how good their delivery process is; but if their information quality is indicative, it probably is good.
Here’s my comments on the second source.
You can begin to get some serious side effects if you take 1,000 mg of niacin or more a day. And, with the time release form, this can happen at more than 500 mg a day.
For exactly that reason, I take 300 mg a day of niacin just after breakfast as I find this produces far less flush then on an empty stomach. And, I take 300 mg of inositol hexaniacinate at breakfast & just after dinner.
Also, one of the reasons taking chromium polynicotinate also helps is that has both chromium which helps prevent blood sugar spikes and a form of niacin that also is flush free. I take 200 mg of that with breakfast.
I’ve been taking 400 mg a day of curcumin also just after dinner. Each of the three lipid effects this source reports is heart protective by itself. That curcumin does all three is outstanding.
Interestingly, I got started taking it because separate research done on the population of India where curcumin is found in high amounts in the curries they eat, suggests very strongly that taking curcumin or eating that much of it in curry tends to be an effective way to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
Most of the foods this source recommends are in our previous posts as Superfoods.
Olive oil has been found to raise HDL levels slightly or leave them alone & to lower LDL levels considerably.
It’s no accident that the populations that eat the most olive oil also have the least heart attacks.
Even more important is to eat ONLY olive oil. Oils like corn oil or safflower oil when used in cooking instead of butter or lard will lower LDL’s too. But, unlike olive oil, they also LOWER your HDL.
Also, canola oil is high in omega 6 oils compared to olive oil & I believe is much less desirable health wise & has less of a positive effect on HDL’s. So, I don’t recommend it. Although, it does have some omega 3 oils that are beneficial, I think that eating high omega 3 fish &/or taking omega 3 supplements is a better source of that.
And, eating walnuts also provides plant based omega 3’s & has other health benefits also.
Drinking red wine & dark beer does boost your HDL levels. And, drinking two seven drinks a week seems correlated with the best health results.
(And, you can drink grape juice & the resveratrol red wine has. Drinking green tea & eating lots of high oxidant fruits & vegetables & taking antioxidant vitamins & supplements also helps & is heart protective.)
(Drinking 10 to 13 drinks a week tends to produce some health problems. And, 14 or more tends to make you fat & tends to trigger diseases & can even damage your brain & lower your sex drive.)
Also, on inositol hexaniacinate, when I added 300 mg of it twice a day, my HDL went well above 90, which I had never been tested at before. So, between my own test results & the second source above, I can strongly recommend it for boosting your HDL.
Overall, this is a great list of effective ways to boost your HDL’s.
I hope these things work as well for you as they have for me.
posted by David at 1:45 PM
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