Your Lower Cholesterol Toolbox

Achieving lower cholesterol is one of the best ways to protect yourself from heart attack and stroke. A fat-like substance found in the blood, cholesterol can build up and form deposits in your arteries. These cholesterol deposits can clog -- or in some cases completely block -- the passage of blood and oxygen to the heart. The result, for hundreds of thousands of people every year, is chest pain, heart attack, or other cardiovascular problems.

There are two kinds of cholesterol: HDL (high-density lipoprotein) and LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol. HDL is often called the "good" kind of cholesterol because it helps remove unneeded cholesterol from the body. LDL is the "bad" cholesterol; it's made up primarily of fat and is a particular risk factor for heart disease.

So when you set out to lower cholesterol, you need to know your HDL number, your LDL number, and your total cholesterol number (which is not the total of your HDL and LDL cholesterol) too.

If any of your cholesterol numbers are in the high risk category, you're at an increased risk for heart disease -- which may lead to heart attack.

The good news is you have several options to help you get back in the cholesterol safety zone. These four options can all work separately -- or together -- to lower cholesterol, and keep it under control.

• Diet
• Exercise
• Weight loss
• Medications

Diet to Lower Cholesterol

The body gets cholesterol in two ways: by making it, and by what we eat. Most of the cholesterol we eat comes from dietary fats found in foods like butter, margarine, milk, and fish. One of the easiest ways to lower cholesterol is to lower your intake of certain kinds of fats.

Just as there is "good" cholesterol and "bad" cholesterol, there are "good" fats and "bad" fats. To keep your cholesterol low, your total fat intake shouldn't be more than 25% to 33% of your diet -- and most of those fats should be the good kind, like vegetable fats (monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats), and omega-3 fatty acids, found mostly in fish.

To help lower cholesterol, you'll want to avoid or reduce saturated fats (usually found in animal products like meats, eggs, and dairy), and trans fats, which are formed when hydrogen is added to vegetable oil (think French fries and doughnuts).

"A quick way to tell the difference between animal fats and vegetable fats is that animal fats are usually solid at room temperature, while vegetable fats are liquid at room temperature," says Antonio Gotto, MD, the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, in New York City.

So fill up on the healthy fats found in vegetable oils, nuts, avocados, and salmon, and cut back on higher-fat foods like red meat, whole milk, and of course, those tempting chips and pastries.