here's no better month than American Heart Month to talk about the state of your heart — specifically your cholesterol levels. What's the link? High LDL (bad) cholesterol levels combined with low HDL (good) cholesterol levels are a major risk factor for heart attacks and strokes. By improving your cholesterol scores you'll lower your risk of falling prey to the #1 and #3 killers in this country.

It's clear that certain foods like prime rib, coconut products, cheese, butter, fatty dairy foods, and many processed foods — when consumed regularly — contribute to high cholesterol. Now that we know more about fats, a few other things are apparent:

1. Some foods, including a few high fat foods, can actually help lower LDL and raise HDL cholesterol.
   

2. Eating cholesterol-rich foods has some impact on blood cholesterol levels, but not nearly as much impact as saturated and hydrogenated fats have.
   

3. Harmful trans fats used in many processed foods may be even more damaging than saturated fats.

So, the strategy for getting your heart into shape is to cut down on the cholesterol-raising foods and add several servings of cholesterol-lowering foods each day.

Remove foods high in saturated fat, since these foods raise LDL cholesterol levels. Regular full-fat dairy products, butter, fatty cuts of meat and pork, poultry skin, coconut products, and palm oils are major sources of saturated fat and should be limited.


Avoid trans fats — the hydrogenated and partially-hydrogenated oils found in many cookies, crackers, pastries, margarine, and fried foods. These man-made saturated fats can be more harmful than natural saturated fats because they lower HDL and raise LDL levels.


Cut back on high-cholesterol foods, but eliminating them altogether isn't necessary. Shellfish contains cholesterol, but virtually no saturated fat, while a steak contains both. Reducing high saturated fat animal products is the key.


Consume foods that are high in fiber. Soluble fiber is especially helpful for lowering LDL levels. Fruits and vegetables — particularly berries, apples, prunes, grapefruits, oranges, carrots, cabbage, sweet potatoes, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts — are excellent sources of soluble fiber. Other powerful cholesterol removers are beans, oats, barley, whole grain cereals, and flax seeds.


Cholesterol-lowering margarines like Benecol and Take Control contain plant substances that prevent cholesterol absorption in the intestine. Use them in place of butter and margarine, but you must treat them like medicine and eat them as directed.


HDL-boosting monounsaturated fats in walnuts, almonds, olive oil, and omega-3 fats (in salmon, tuna, and fortified eggs) are also cholesterol-lowering superstars.


Soy foods like soybeans, tofu, soy "meat", and soy milk are heart-healthy substitutes for foods that are high in saturated fat since they help lower LDL cholesterol.

Making any of these changes should have some effect on your cholesterol levels but recent research suggests that the health benefits are additive. Add some exercise to reap even more benefits. With each additional strategy you adopt, your cholesterol scores should improve and your risk of heart disease should decline.

What's the difference between cholesterol in my diet and cholesterol in my blood? - Customer at West Hollywood

Cholesterol is a fat-like substance but it is not a fat. It occurs naturally in the bodies of humans and animals. Therefore, dietary cholesterol comes from foods of animal origin that we eat. Eating a lot of cholesterol may cause some people to have elevated blood cholesterol levels, but dietary cholesterol isn't necessarily converted into blood cholesterol. LDL and HDL cholesterol are not found in food, but what you eat can influence your blood levels of these good and bad substances. In reality, adults don't need to eat any cholesterol, since our livers make all the cholesterol we need (and sometimes more). Cholesterol in the body helps produce hormones, bile, and vitamin D. For this to occur, the liver must package cholesterol with fats and proteins to be transported to various parts of the body. Two important packages are called LDL and HDL. LDL is considered "bad" because it carries lots of cholesterol, and HDL is good because it hardly has any. When you have too much LDL and/or too little HDL circulating in your blood, your risk of heart disease goes up.

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The nutrition recommendations found in our newsletters are general in nature and are not tailored to specific health problems. Talk to your physician or other qualified health care practitioner concerning particular health issues or before beginning any nutritional program.