It is better to keep the cholesterol level to less than 180 m.gm. per 100cc. Higher level of cholesterol carries more risk of coronary disease. To reduce the cholesterol level in blood, dieting is the only method. This can be done easily by reducing body weight. As the body weight comes down blood cholesterol level also comes down. The level of fat in the diet should be reduced.
It should be brought down to 30% calories (8% saturated fat) and ideally to 20% calories (5% saturated fat) will mean avoiding all friend food are primarily from animal origin as ghee, butter, meat and egg are known to be associated with the deposition of cholesterol is high. Strict vegetarian diet contain less cholesterol. For non-vegetarians mixed diet is ideal.
Alcohol is a high calorie food. It also increases cholesterol and triglycerides in the food. It is recommended to stop or restrict to minimum level. Increase fibre in your diet, it has good effect in bringing down cholesterol and triglycerides in the blood. By judicious dieting cholesterol can be brought down by 15%. A further 10% can be brought down by restricting fats in the diet. It has been estimated that if above restrictions are observed, reduction by two fold in the risk of heart diseases is possible.
Controversy about baby food was estimated to 4 billion dollars. High pressure publicity in the media makes believe that baby food is good and even better then breast milk. Figure conscious ladies switch on to baby food from breast milk. After a hue and cry by the medical men and scientists some restrictions have been put on such advertising and an effort has been made to tell people that breast milk is better than baby food. It is compulsory to write on every tin of baby food that breast milk is superior to baby food. It has been proved beyond doubt in reputed India and International medical journals that breast milk is the best. Breast fed children have fewer allergies and illnesses. They have more immunity. The antibodies from the mother’s blood are transferred to babies through breast milk.
Ayurveda stresses the importance of breast milk. “Kasyap Samhita” glorifies pure breast milk on which the baby thrive and by which both mother and baby remain happy. Breast feeding is the medium for transferring affection to the baby, it has been found that breast-fed in the first six months of life have upto 10 times more risk of dying.
An American nutritionist, Dr. John Yudkins advises against “good things of life”. If a person consumes 110 grams of sugar per day, he has 5 times more risk of a heart attack than a person consuming only 60 gms. He advises to cut down on sweets and alcohol to bring down tryglycerides and cholesterol in blood.
Soviet and American scientists have come together to advise that the more you cut down your daily sugar intake the healthier the heart and body will be. Sugar which makes our life sweeter, infact makes it bitter and compels us to fall ill and live on borrowed time. Eminent Soviet cardiologist Dr. N.G. Khaltayevr, disputes the popular belief that sugar is harmful to the heart, only if it increases body weight. “It is wrong to think that you can take any amount of sugar if you are not fat,” he warns.
We love our sweets. No auspicious occasion is complete without sweets. Every good meal ends with sweets. Tea must have 2 or 3 spoon of sugar in a cup. Have we ever have calculated how much sugar we consume every day? Sugar is carbohydrate full of calories devoid of vitamin, mineral and fibbers. Whatever sugar we eat should be burnt up to produce energy, and if they con’t they will produce health problems. Recently a survey was conducted by World Health Organisation (WHO). They selected 10 countries which consume more sugar and 10 countries which consume less sugar. They found that countries which consume least sugar have least heart problems. Excess sugar puts extra load on pancreas to secrete more insulin and when it con’t do so we get diabetes.
Sugar raises cholesterol level in the blood which is the main cause for high blood pressure and diseases. It is easier to give up sugar than smoking and alcohol. Recent studies in the U.S.S.R., in the Institute of Preventive Cardiology, has connected refined sugar to serious problems like gout and arthritis. Sugar raises the level of uric acid in blood.
Eat poor man’s food and avoid rich man’s diseases
Dr. John Higginson, senior fellow at the Institute of health policy analysis, U.S.A. called for avoiding rich foods at a meeting in New Delhi. Dr. Higginson claimed that a large group of cancer common in North America, Europe and Japan had been linked to general diet. He said it was suspected that cancers of the stomach, colon, rectum and breast, relatively rare in most parts of Africa and India, were connected with the amount of fat in the diet.