7 ways to increase your HDL to protect your heart...

Today's post: Monday, 2-4-2008

I read a medical education article recently that listed seven different ways to increase your HDL & protect your heart.

Six of them do not involve supplements; so, if you also take choline & chromium polynicotinate & a good B Complex, plus about 35 mg of zinc & 400 to 600 mg of magnesium, you can boost your HDL enough to make a significant improvement in your heart health and lower your heart disease risk. (You get, I believe, a 5 to 20 % boost from that combination of supplements.)

In addition, other than the one method that uses drugs, which also have risks & side-effects, each of the supplements listed above & the other 6 of the 7 methods from the article have other health benefits, many of which are also heart protective..

The other good thing about the article that’s nice is that it gives you a good estimate of how much boost you will get from each one.

1. Exercise they list as increasing your HDL by 5 to 10 %. Dr Peter Wood at Stanford showed that vigorous exercise every week of 1500 calories a week or more was most effective.

Exercise also improves circulation & circulation to your heart; & it reduces the harmful small sized, LDL, so it gives you triple heart protection.

The one caveat if you have heart disease or very high risk factors, is to improve your risk factors in other ways & do less vigorous exercise until your risk factors improve & you have acclimated to exercise BEFORE you push the limits on vigorous exercise. People who try too hard without doing that have died of the heart attack they triggered.

I personally believe I get over a 10 % boost, based on how my HDL level goes down if I get somewhat less exercise, let alone not at all. (I know the other benefits of exercise & the abundant other penalties for NOT exercising. So, even when I’m sick, I usually manage some.)

2. Fat loss will boost your HDL by 1 % for about each pound of fat loss. So, if you are 15 pounds over fat & lose them, you’d get a 15 % boost. Clearly, if you are really fat, it will take longer; but you will get more boost when you are done.

(I suspect you get less than that if you were already exercising. But I suspect you get more if you also lost the fat weight in part by beginning regular exercise.)

3. Replacing transfats (aka trans fats); saturated fats from animal sources, & polyunsaturated oils like soy, corn, & safflower with omega 3 oils & with extra virgin olive oil, will boost your HDL up to 5%

In addition, this will help lower your blood pressure, &, just like exercise, it will reduce the harmful small sized, LDL. That means you get triple heart protection from this one.

4. Stop smoking if you smoke; & escape from second hand smoke if you are often exposed to it to the maximum extent you can.

They estimate this one at 5 to 10 % HDL boost.

But the health benefits & heart protection benefits are FAR greater than that. Cigarette & other tobacco smoke also make the HDL you still have less beneficial & effective in preventing heart disease. Even worse, it increases the amount of homocysteine in your blood which also tends to cause heart disease in other ways. This effect even hits younger smokers.

So, the heart & health protection for this one if you haven’t already done it, are much closer to 100 to 400 %.

5. Regular alcohol consumption from alcoholic drinks boosts HDL by 5 to 15 %.

But excessive or mismanaged drinking causes other health problems and the accident rate associated with that has a death rate. So, many doctors are wary of recommending that people do this one.

The best range for men for health overall seems to be between 6 & 12 drinks a week with it being rare to drink more than 2 a day.

The best range for women for health overall seems to be between 3 & 6 drinks a week with it being rare to drink more than one a day. (Women tend to be smaller & usually process alcohol at about half the rate of men.)

All alcohol seems to boost HDL & promote less blood clotting. But red wine & dark beer have other health benefits.

The higher end of that range boosts HDL the best but begins to increase other risks.

Be extra careful if you drink. And, stay home or wait a few hours before you drive or operate dangerous things once you drink alcohol.

6. Taking niacin often boosts HDL by 20 to 30 %.

It also lowers LDL cholesterol. Even better, beyond just protecting your heart, people who take niacin have a lower death rate from all causes than people who do not.

This one, like exercise, not smoking, moderate drinking & taking all the supplements we first list above, is a very powerful tool to use indeed.

Some cautions & tips are in order however.

If you take more than 1,000 mg a day, you need to have your doctor check your liver function regularly with the appropriate blood tests because higher doses sometimes cause liver problems.

Also note that, although inositol hexaniacinate may also boost HDL, that’s far less proven. And, since it is sometimes sold as No Flush niacin, if you want to try niacin, do NOT buy No Flush niacin or inositol hexaniacinate. (I take 600 mg a day of each & have had great HDL measurements.)

I take 300 mg of niacin after breakfast & another after dinner. I find that this minimizes or eliminates the flush reaction. However, taking it on empty stomach or after a small meal tends to give me the full flush reaction. I know the flush likely is helping to clean out my blood vessels; but it looks & feels like instant sunburn until it subsides, so I don’t recommend taking niacin on an empty stomach.

Also note that the version of niacin called niacinimide does not produce a flush but it doesn’t boost HDL or lower LDL either. However, I recommend taking some as part of a good B complex vitamin because it has other health benefits. And, I strongly suspect that if you take both niacin AND niacinimide, you get more HDL boost & LDL lowering from the niacin you take, since the niacinimide has some of niacin’s other functions already covered.

The last caution is that sometimes taking statins & niacin together causes bad side effects, so if your doctor prescribes both be sure they are checking you regularly & report any side effects quickly.

7. The article says that statins boost HDL by 5 to 10 %. They also decrease inflammation.

For most statins, the boost, I’ve read, is closer to 5 %. And, the statins have a less protective track record than niacin; they cost more; & they have side effects & risks. (They actually hurt your heart by lowering CoQ10 if you don’t take them with 90 to 100 mg a day or more of CoQ10.)

So, the better doctors I’ve read only use statins for their sickest, worst shape, patients -- & rely on the first 6 steps instead for most of their patients.

As you can see, that also works & can even work better if you do all of them.