Benefits of Raising your Good Cholesterol (HDLs)

This week I have added a newsletter by Dr. Ray Strand. Dr Strand is a family practice physician who has been specializing in Nutritional Medicine for over 8 years now. Dr Strand looks at diet, exercise, and supplementation as a first line of therapy before getting out the prescription pad. He has many success stories and case studies over the years. Dr Strand is an International Speaker on the subject of Nutritional Medicine and the use of Supplementation. He has written several books such as Releasing Fat, Death by Prescription, What Your Doctor Doesn't Know about Nutritional Medicine May be Killing You, Healthy for Life, and others.

You can learn more about Dr. Strand and even have a phone consultation with him or start his Healthy for Life online lifestyle program for weight management.

One of the safe ways to increase your HDL or good cholesterol is by adding the "good" essential fats. The fats found in fish oil, flaxseed oil, and Olive oil are some examples of good fats that will help raise your HDLs or good cholesterol. In the Greek Islands and other Mediterranean countries the incidence of heart disease is RARE. Many scientists contribute the diet and intake of Olive oil as one of the factors.

Many people can't get the 2-3oz of Olive oil needed per day so they look to supplementation. Fish Oil capsules are quite popular. One down side is that you want to look for a company that filters their fish oil during the manufacturing process to remove the potentially harmful Mercury that is being found now in cold water fish. Warnings are out there concerning the amount of tuna people eat, recommending not more than 2 cans per week because our bodies cannot process any more Mercury. Visit http://www.pamdunwald.com for information on products such as the Fish Oil where the company does remove and filter any harmful Mercury.

Dr. Strand's links are below.

http://www.releasingfat.com/ Healthy for Life Program- Discount code: 111958. Certified Coach: Pam Dunwald, R.N.

http://www.bionutrition.org/


Healthy for Life NewsletterJuly/August 2007 Vol. 4, No. 4Raising Your HDL or "Good" Cholesterol
The July/August edition of the Healthy for Life Newsletter is attached to this e-mail as an Adobe Acrobat file.
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The on-line edition of this newsletter can be found at: www.Bionutrition.org/newsletter

Below is an excerpt from this month's newsletter.

"Physicians have known for years that those patients who have a high HDL or good cholesterol have a significantly decreased risk of developing coronary artery disease. The dilemma has been finding ways to improve someone's HDL that is below normal. Lowering the total and LDL or bad cholesterol has been much easier to accomplish, since we now have a host of statin drugs from which to choose. Pfizer pharmaceutical has just slammed the brakes on a 15,000 patient trial involving an experimental drug that had previously been shown to raise this HDL or good cholesterol. A preliminary report involving this drug, called torceptrapib, demonstrated that this drug had a dark side. Reviewers of this clinical trial showed that there were 60% more deaths in the group taking torceptrapib with Lipitor, than the group that was just receiving the Lipitor. Pfizer was left with no choice but to put a halt on this very large clinical trial. This has now led cardiologists and pharmaceutical companies concerned about the safety of other drugs that are being studied, which also raise HDL. Ways to exploit HDL and avoid its pitfalls are among the hottest questions in heart research today."