An article has just appeared in the journal Atherosclerosis that directly investigated the effects of our end-of-year festivities on cholesterol levels.
And the results were shocking.
Worst of all, this is not just about the holidays. Instead, you need to be aware of this information all year around.
Researchers from Copenhagen University Hospital and the University of Copenhagen identified 25,764 people from the Copenhagen General Population Study and compared their total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol scores, which were taken at various points throughout the year.
In January, their subject’s cholesterol was 20 percent higher than it was during June and July, and their risk of having high cholesterol was found to be six times greater at that point than the rest of the year.
Unbelievably, at the beginning of January, 77 percent of the subjects had high LDL cholesterol and 89 percent of them had high total cholesterol.
This obviously meant that people are a spectacular amount of unhealthy foods during the holidays. And that these foods will directly and immediately spike your cholesterol level.
So, if your cholesterol level is already high, take particular care not to rocket it into a lethal level during the festive holidays.
You should also avoid having your cholesterol measured in January, as this may cause a false alarm as compared to taking it at any point during the rest of the year.
But there is some good news:
To get more ideas on how to lower LDL cholesterol and prevent heart attack, watch this video – 7 Foods That Can Prevent Heart Attack And Stroke Naturally
You know that eating well, exercising, not smoking and other healthy lifestyles are very important in order to avoid heart attacks and stroke, along with keeping your cholesterol and blood pressure at bay.
Now a new study, presented at The European Society of Cardiology annual congress has revealed a factor that is even more important.
It’s a specific sleep habit.
Apparently, sleeping the wrong way will harden your arteries and can double your risk of having a stroke or heart attack.
Swedish scientists found that middle-aged men who slept five hours or less a night had double the risk of heart disease as compared to those who slept seven or eight hours.
In 1993, 798 50-year-old men from Gothenburg agreed to participate in the study.
They underwent a medical examination and completed questionnaires regarding their health and sleeping habits.
Using this information, the scientists divided them into groups that had five or less sleeping hours, six sleeping hours, seven to eight sleeping hours, and those that had more than eight hours of sleep.
The researchers then observed them for 21 years to see who would suffer cardiovascular events.
Those who slept for five or less hours per night had a doubled risk of suffering a major cardiovascular event when compared with those who slept between seven and eight hours.
If you have trouble sleeping, here is a simple technique that will knock you out in 10 minutes – and keep you asleep for 8 hours…
And if your cholesterol is too high, it’s actually quite easy to normalize it painlessly, simply by cutting out this one ingredient you didn’t even know you were consuming…
Slow down! Says a new study published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Exercising can actually increase your risk of dying from heart attack by 160%…
… if done in the wrong way.
In this study, the researchers followed 2,377 people who have already had a cardiac event in the preceding 10 years to explore the effects of different exercise patterns on the likelihood that they would die of another cardiac event.
Here is what they found:
- Those who did the metabolic equivalent of a 1.07 to 1.8 km run every day reduced their risk of cardiac death by 21%.
- Those who did the equivalent of a 1.8 to 3.6 km run reduced their risk of cardiac death by 24%.
- Those who did the equivalent of a 3.6 to 5.4 km run reduced their risk of cardiac death by 50%.
- Those who did the equivalent of a 5.4 to 7.2 km run reduced their risk of cardiac death by 63%.
- BUT, those who did the equivalent of a run longer than 7.2 km INCREASED their risk of cardiac death by 160%.
So, while more exercise is better than a small amount of it, there is a point at which too much exercise becomes a heart risk.
This study used people with that had previous cardiac events as its subjects. However, the findings seem to be consistent with healthy individuals as well.
The safest, easiest and most effective exercise to lower blood pressure would be the simple blood pressure exercises found here…
And if you need to get your cholesterol under control, all it will take is the cutting out this one ingredient you didn’t even know you were consuming…
This post is from the Oxidized Cholesterol Strategy Program. It was created by Scott Davis. Because he once suffered from high cholesterol, so much so that he even had a severe heart attack. This is what essentially led him to finding healthier alternatives to conventional medication. Oxidized Cholesterol Strategy is a unique online program that provides you with all the information you need to regain control of your cholesterol levels and health, as a whole.
To find out more about this program, go to How Best to Lower LDL Cholesterol and Prevent Heart Attack.
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