#HealthBytes: 5 food items to help you decrease cholesterol levels
What's the story
Your cholesterol level basically depends on what you fill your plates with.
A healthy diet and lifestyle is all you need to keep your cholesterol levels in check.
However, in case, you already have mild to high cholesterol, start including food items that helps reduce cholesterol in your diet.
Here, we list 5 such food items that can help in reducing cholesterol levels.
Oats
Oats go a long way in controlling cholesterol
Rich in a form of soluble fiber called beta glucan, Oats, that are anyway great for good health in general, can be super beneficial for lowering cholesterol levels.
This happens because beta glucan creates a gel that binds cholesterol in the intestines, therefore preventing it from getting absorbed.
A daily intake of about 3g of beta glucan is recommended.
Nuts
Walnuts and almonds to the rescue for cholesterol patients
Nuts are a great source of vegetable protein, fiber, monounsaturated fats, vitamin E, magnesium, potassium, natural plant sterols, which are all great to decrease bad cholesterol levels.
A handful (30-35 grams) of nuts everyday can help lower cholesterol by as much as 5%.
Just make sure to keep your nut consumption limited, as eating a lot of them can make you fat.
Soya foods
Soya foods can considerably decrease bad cholesterol levels
A 2015 analysis of some scientific studies proved that consumption of Soya foods is linked with lower levels of bad cholesterol and higher levels of good cholesterol.
The reason being, Soya foods are naturally low in saturated fats, and have special proteins that help regulate cholesterol.
With as little as 15g of Soya intake a day, one can reduce cholesterol levels by upto 6%.
Fruits and veggies
Fruits and vegetables are highly potent in lowering cholesterol
Keep your saturated fats intake on the lower end by eating more fruits and veggies, as all of these are low in saturated fats.
Additionally, they're also a great source of cholesterol-reducing soluble fiber.
Even if you're not a cholesterol patient, the natural goodness of fruits and vegetables will, anyway, keep your risk of developing bad cholesterol at bay.
Fatty fish
Omega-3 fatty acids will help lower cholesterol levels
Fatty fishes, being a great source of Omega-3 fatty acids, can lower bad cholesterol.
By increasing good cholesterol in the body, Omega-3 also reduces chances of inflammation and strokes.
Notably, one study of elderly people found that the participants who ate tuna or other baked/broiled fish at least once in a week were at 27% lower risk of developing heart-related health problems.