Prevention

High Cholesterol - Prevention

High Cholesterol Guide

A heart-healthy lifestyle can help you prevent heart and blood flow problems, such as heart attacks and strokes.

This lifestyle includes:

• Eating a heart-healthy diet that is rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish, and low-fat or nonfat dairy foods.
• Being active on most, if not all, days of the week.
• Losing weight if you need to, and staying at a healthy weight.
• Not smoking.

Heart-healthy diets include the DASH diet, the Mediterranean diet and the American Heart Association diet recommendations. This chart compares several heart-healthy diets.
Remember that cholesterol is just one of the things that increase your risk for heart attack and stroke. Controlling other health problems, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, can also help reduce your overall risk.