Improving your cholesterol

Adopting a healthy, balanced diet and keeping active, can help prevent your cholesterol levels becoming high, but can also help lower it. It’s important to keep your cholesterol in check as it can increase your chances of heart disease and strokes.

How can I reduce it/ keep it low?

• Reduce your level of foods high in saturated fats (in butter, cream, hard cheeses, sausages etc)

• Have unsaturated fats instead (oily fish, nuts, seeds, avocados)

• Choose lean cuts of meat

• Use vegetable/ sunflower oils for cooking but go for baking, grilling and steaming rather than frying where possible

• Look for lower fat options, but be careful as lower fat can mean higher sugar!

• Eat more fibre. Adults should have around 30g of fibre a day and this helps reduce the risk of heart disease

• And of course, an active lifestyle can also help lower your cholesterol level.

Footnote: Some foods naturally contain cholesterol, known as dietary cholesterol. Foods such as kidneys, eggs and prawns are higher in dietary cholesterol than other foods. However, cholesterol found in food has much less of an effect on the level of cholesterol in your blood than the amount of saturated fat you eat.