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Although necessary for our bodies to function properly, many people worry about high cholesterol levels and the effect it may have their health. Our bodies produce both “good” (HDL) and “bad”(LDL) cholesterol. For proper health, the goal is to increase levels of “good” cholesterol and reduce our levels of “bad” cholesterol. Both of these goals can be accomplished by utilizing a low carb cholesterol diet.

The mechanics of the low carb cholesterol diet are simple. This type of diet works by reducing or completely cutting out fat- and sugar-laden foods. When sugar and insulin levels rise, body fat also rises. The triggering factor behind this rise is excess carbohydrates, found in sugars and starches. Too much sugar and body fat can lead to other health problems such as heart disease and diabetes.

Cholesterol is present in a number of foods, especially those containing saturated or trans-fats. A low carb cholesterol diet that reduces sweets and saturated and trans-fats will result in a lowering of both body fat and bad cholesterol levels. Most overweight patients have elevated cholesterol levels and would benefit from implementing a low carb low cholesterol diet.

By considerably decreasing the body’s insulin level, low carb cholesterol diet foods trigger the use of excess fat and sugars already available in your body. This will consequently cause you to lose weight at a much faster rate than possible with ordinary diets.

If you decide to try a low carb cholesterol diet, you should know that you can eat almost anything, provided you stick with foods that are low in carbohydrates and sugars. You should do a little research into finding out what foods contain high levels of carbs and cholesterol and you’ll be better prepared to avoid them or replace them with healthier options.

Thanks to increased awareness regarding cholesterol and heart health, there are a lot of foods readily available that can be used in a low carb cholesterol diet. Foods that are usually high in starch like pasta are now available with reduced carbohydrates. This allows people who care about their health and weight to take pleasure in eating these products and decrease their cholesterol at the same time.

If you want to lose weight, feel healthier, have more energy and get faster results on your cholesterol levels, exercise is an important key factor. Double check with your doctor before you begin any new eating plan, including a low carb cholesterol diet, to be absolutely certain this is the right choice for you. If you are pregnant or nursing, or if you already have a medical condition that might limit you, it is extremely important for you to get the go-ahead from your doctor.

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Two years after the government urged that HIV tests become as common as cholesterol checks, there are small gains but still one in five people infected with the AIDS virus does not know it, scientists said Nov. 20.

Eleven states that once required special consent for HIV testing have changed their laws, a key step to making an HIV test part of the standard battery that patients expect.

But HIV specialists meeting Nov. 20 said other barriers include physician confusion about the ease of today’s rapid tests, which can cost as little as $15, even though many patients seem to accept them.

No more than 100 of the nation’s 5,000 emergency rooms routinely test for HIV in patients who are not critically ill, said Dr. John Bartlett of Johns Hopkins University, who co-chaired the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research meeting. Yet because so many HIV patients are poor or uninsured, ERs are the health care setting most likely to find them.

And while every pregnant woman is supposed to be tested so her fetus can be protected if the mother is found to have AIDS, about 40 percent are not tested, he said.

“Those are what we call missed opportunities,” Bartlett said. Today, the test is “much better, it’s much easier, it’s much cheaper. The treatment is really great now.”

Just over 1.1 million Americans are estimated to have HIV and 232,000 do not know it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC for years recommended routine testing mainly for people at high-risk, such as injecting drug users. Then, finally, came drugs potent enough to keep HIV patients healthy for years, postponing the slide into full-blown AIDS. Yet nearly half of new infections still were being discovered too late for patients to benefit. Not to mention that people who don’t know they’re infected unwittingly spread the virus.

So in September 2006, the CDC recommended routine testing for everyone ages 13 to 64, whether they think they’re at risk for HIV or not.

There is no nationwide data yet on the new guidelines’ impact, CDC’s Dr. Bernard Branson told The Associated Press.

But Branson listed encouraging signs:

– New York City’s Health and Hospitals Corp., the nation’s largest municipal health system, has nearly tripled HIV testing, and late diagnoses have dropped by about a third.
– New York’s state Medicaid program has increased testing by 30 percent.
– Early results from a federal survey suggest 2.4 million more people in 2007 said they had ever been tested for HIV than said so in 2006.
– President George W. Bush in October signed a law allowing Veterans Administration clinics to ease testing requirements.
“I don’t think anyone at CDC anticipated that we would test the whole country in a single year,” Branson said.

But in pilot projects around the country, “people are taking the recommendations to heart and implementing them as much as was feasible for them,” he added. Moreover, “we find people are very receptive to being tested, and there was concern about that before.”

Indeed, studies presented suggest more than 80 percent of emergency-room patients were amenable to HIV tests, while most ER workers opposed testing them. Why? Presumably because ERs are so busy, and there is confusion about how much HIV counseling is needed.

Bartlett demonstrated how to quickly give people a chance to either opt out or request counseling: “Mr. Jones, you’re going to have a cholesterol test, a blood count, and an HIV test – and by the way we do the HIV test on everybody because that’s what the CDC has recommended. Is there any part of this that you want more information about or you don’t want to have?”

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Everyone age 20 and older should have their cholesterol measured at least once every 5 years. It is best to have a blood test called a “lipoprotein profile” to find out your cholesterol numbers. This blood test is done after a 9- to 12-hour fast and gives information about your:

* Total cholesterol
* LDL (bad) cholesterol – the main source of cholesterol buildup and blockage in the arteries
* HDL (good) cholesterol – helps keep cholesterol from building up in the arteries
* Triglycerides – another form of fat in your blood

If it is not possible to get a lipoprotein profile done, knowing your total cholesterol and HDL cholesterol can give you a general idea about your cholesterol levels. If your total cholesterol is 200 mg/dL*

Or more or if your HDL is less than 40 mg/dL, you will need to have a lipoprotein profile done. See how your cholesterol numbers compare to the tables below.

Total Cholesterol……… Level Category
Less than 200 mg/dL….. Desirable
200-239 mg/dL…………….. Borderline high
240 mg/dL and above….. High

LDL Cholesterol Level….. LDL Cholesterol Category
Less than 100 mg/dL………… Optimal
100-129 mg/dL……………….. Near optimal/above Optimal
130-159 mg/dL……………….. Borderline high
160-189 mg/dL……………….. High
190 mg/dL and above Very high

HDL (good) cholesterol protects against heart disease, so for HDL, higher numbers are better.A level less than 40 mg/dL is low and is considered a major risk factor because it increases your risk for developing heart disease. HDL levels of 60 mg/dL or more help to lower your risk for heart disease. Triglycerides can also raise heart disease risk.

Levels that are borderline high (150-199 mg/dL) or high (200 mg/dL or more) may need treatment in some people.

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I have high blood pressure and my LDL cholesterol level was very high. My doctor is pleased with my most recent numbers; but I take so many pills. What can I do to cut out or lower the dose of some of these medications?

We’ve gotten used to taking pills for much that ails us, but these days, the medicine cabinet is looking like a rogues’ gallery. We don’t lack for alternatives. Plenty of research shows that exercise, diet and other lifestyle changes are effective weapons against many chronic conditions. Here are ways to help you reduce your pill count and get the results you and your doctor are looking for:

To help lower your blood pressure, take your pick: lose some weight, get more exercise, eat less sodium, change your diet. They all work.

If you’re heavy, each two pounds of weight loss translates to a 1 mm Hg drop in systolic (the top number) and diastolic (the bottom number) blood pressure. Regular exercise can even lower your blood pressure if you don’t lose weight.

Eliminating about three-quarters of a teaspoon of salt (1.8 grams of sodium) from your diet each day may drop your systolic reading by 5 points and the diastolic by 3. Trials of vegetarian diets have shown they can reduce systolic blood pressure by 5 mm Hg.

The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet can lower systolic blood pressure by 12 points and diastolic pressure by 5. DASH dieting involves eating fruits and vegetables (seven to nine servings a day) and low-fat dairy products (two to three servings a day), plus whole grains, nuts, poultry and fish, all while keeping saturated fat, red meat and sweets to a minimum.

Any of these strategies will also make blood-pressure-lowering medication more effective. Whether they can replace the pills depends on how high your blood pressure is. But weight loss, exercise and diet can make lower dosages possible and perhaps eliminate the need for medication altogether.

You can adjust your diet in several ways to lower levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol. Your LDL level may drop by 5 percent if you keep foods high in saturated fat (meat and full-fat dairy products) off the menu. Every additional gram of soluble fiber per day may reduce LDL levels by about 2 mg/dL. Diets that have included margarines fortified with sterols – compounds that block cholesterol absorption – have brought about LDL drops of 10 to 20 percent in some studies. Low-fat diets heavy on the vegetables (10 servings a day) and legumes and nuts (4 servings a day) have dialed down LDL levels by almost 10 percent.

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A variety of things can affect cholesterol levels. These are things you can do something about:

* Diet. Saturated fat and cholesterol in the food you eat make your blood cholesterol level go up. Saturated fat is the main culprit, but cholesterol in foods also matters. Reducing the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol in your diet helps lower your blood cholesterol level.
* Weight. Being overweight is a risk factor for heart disease. It also tends to increase your cholesterol. Losing weight can help lower your LDL and total cholesterol levels, as well as raise your HDL and lower your triglyceride levels.
* Physical Activity. Not being physically active is a risk factor for heart disease. Regular physical activity can help lower LDL (bad) cholesterol and raise HDL (good) cholesterol levels. It also helps you lose weight. You should try to be physically active for 30 minutes on most, if not all, days.

Things you cannot do anything about also can affect cholesterol levels. These include:

* Age and Gender. As women and men get older, their cholesterol levels rise. Before the age of menopause, women have lower total cholesterol levels than men of the same age. After the age of menopause, women’s LDL levels tend to rise.
* Heredity. Your genes partly determine how much cholesterol your body makes. High blood cholesterol can run in families.

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