How to Increase HDL Levels – 9 Steps
Levels of 60 mg/DL or more in HDL are ideal and an increase of 1 mg/DL in HDL cholesterol has been proven to decrease the risk of heart disease by 2 to 3%. If that isn’t enough to convince you of the importance of improving your HDL levels, read on.
HDL collects cholesterol from your arterial walls and transports it to your liver to be metabolized. HDL also keeps your arteries healthy through anti-inflammatory properties that are beneficial. HDL has been proven to be an independent risk factor (from LDL and total cholesterol) only in the past few years. Now, it’s a very popular topic and in the news quite often.
Here are 9 steps you can take to increase HDL concentration:
1. Aerobic Exercise
Regular aerobic exercise that raises your heart rate for at least 20 to 30 minutes will help increase your HDL levels. Incidentally, exercise will also help you lose weight which increases HDL as well. Recent studies related to exercise and HDL levels have been popular in the news lately. “Overall, the researchers found, exercisers increased their HDL cholesterol by a modest but significant 2.53 mg/dL, which equates to a roughly 5 percent drop in heart disease risk for men and a nearly 8 percent reduction for women.” [1]
2. Supplement Fish Oil
Fish oil can increase HDL over a long period of time. You can get this from any omega-3 supplement or soy foods, green leafy vegetables, and walnuts.
3. Take Niacin With Doctor Supervision
Niacin or vitamin B-3 has been proven to raise HDL by as much as 15% to 35%. However, you need to take large doses of niacin for it to be effective. This makes treatment to be considered a drug and should be administered by your doctor because of potentially harmful side effects when taken in higher doses.
4. Smoking Cessation
If you are already a non-smoker, then I guess you are out of luck on this one, but smoking cessation does raise HDL levels.
5. Eliminate Trans Fatty Acids
Trans fatty acids are a double whammy because they not only reduce HDL cholesterol, but they increase LDL cholesterol. These can be identified as partially hydrogenated vegetable oils on many nutrition labels on foods.
6. Alcohol Moderation
While having a drink or two per day can help with increasing hdl levels, drinking more can lead to more health problems including heart disease. If you don’t already, you might want to consider drinking a glass of wine with dinner.
7. Increase Monounsaturated Fats
These are oils like avocado, olive, canola and those found in peanut butter. They can increase HDL concentration without raising total cholesterol. Definitely a good contributor to raising HDL diets.
8. Add Soluble Fiber
Soluble fibers are those found in vegetables, fruits, and oats. You should aim for at least two servings per day. Soluble fibers are great because they also help lower LDL cholesterol levels.
9. Avoid Ultra Low Fat Diets
Losing weight is always good for your health, but having too little fat in your diet can be a problem. It has been proven that eliminating too much fat from your diet can reduce your HDL cholesterol.
HARE KRUSHNA!
I got my lipid profile test report today. My HDL is 18 mg/dl, total cholesterol is 190 mg/dl, LDC is 151 mg/dl, VLDL is 21 mg/dl and triglyceride is 109 mg/dl. HDL very low. Please suggest remedies. My age is 65 years(male, indian).
Doosri,
I also have very low levels of HDL cholesterol. To the extent of the steps given in this article some of which I already did anyways – I increased my exercise and started taking niacin. I was able to raise my level up to 40 mg/dL.
Augment diet with coconut oil and niacinamide (500-1000 mgs daily)
Don’t take straight niacin…bad flush problem, bad for the liver:
but niacinamide at 500 mg or less rarely flushes, and is safe for the liver. I take 1000 mg daily with no problems. Coconut oil can be bought in bulk or capsules. Cook with the bulk, take the capsules for health. Try Puritan vitamins for best price.
Don’t delay—your present HDL is much too low.
Consider the role of “good” HDL cholesterol. Essentially, HDL takes cholesterol from your body’s tissues and arteries, and brings it back to your liver, where most of your cholesterol is produced. If the purpose of this was to eliminate cholesterol from your body, it would make sense that the cholesterol would be shuttled back to your kidneys or intestines so your body could remove it.
You need to do daily exercise at least for 30 to 40 minutes. You will ghet the result within two month time. Increase your heart rate upto 120 while doing exercise.
I have read that diabetics tend to have very low HDL. Is this possible in your case?
I have also indian race and of 71 years. I have bypass surgery
20 years ago. Having good health. My recent test show 27 hdl which came down from 35. I questioned my doctor, she emphasized
excercise but also considering Niacin. Good luck
my hdl level is low 30 mg/dl and ldl is 91.80 and hdl and ldl ratio are3.06 chol and hdl ratio are 5.17 vldl 33.20 mg and cholestral 155 mg/dl triglicerides 166 mg/dl please suggest about above lipid profile test result
Kushlesh,
You’re HDL definitely needs to come up. Make sure you’re following the 9 steps outlined above to increase your HDL levels.
my mother age is 51, her lipid profile report shows
total cholesterol = 97.4
HDL = 28
LDL =53.6
triglyceride = 78.7
please suggest me what should do, her have heart blockage @ left artery is 65%
Dear Fellows,
The levels of cholesterol & triglycerides is one of the causative factors & not alone factor. If you see many of the patients/persons on this discussion panel are having extremely slow HDL still they are alive until 55-71 yrs. So it is not only level of these cholesterol & TGL levels that are significant but endothelial damage of the arteries that is the most significant basis of IHD. Once there is endothelial microabrasion due to stress ( which is very very common in India)then even normal levels of cholesterol & triglycerides will hit you badly.
Please understand the basic concept. Pardon me if hurt you.
Prakash
homocysteine 5096 ulu/ml
serum cholesterol 199 mg/dl
serum triglyceride 134 mg/dl
ldl cholesterol 137.2 mg/dl
vldl cholesterol 26.8 mg/dl
ldl/hdl cholesterol 3.92
chol/hdl cholesterol ratio 5.69
hdl cholesterol 35 mg/dl
serum uric acid 6.7 mg/dl
please advice me what diet take & treatment
I WANT TO KNOW THAT HAVE THE GARLIC OIL WILL BE INCREASED HDL LEVEL?PLEASE REPLY……JUST I TAKE IT 4 SOFTGELS 2 TIMES DAILY FROM MALAYSIA ITS CONTAINS,GARLIC CONCENTRATE 2.06MG EQUIVALENT TO 6G FRESH GARLIC…