2 Easy Ways To Lower Your Cholesterol Levels, According To Experts

1. Eat more foods that contain soluble fiber

Fiber is an essential part of any healthy diet for many reasons, including the fact that it helps regulate your blood sugar levels. And according to Berger, upping your intake of soluble fiber can also help you lower your cholesterol.

"Soluble fiber helps to reduce LDL (bad cholesterol) in your blood," she explains. Eating high-fiber foods like oatmeal, bran, beans, barley, apples, pears, and flaxseed forms a gel around that "bad" cholesterol as you digest it, so that you're easily able to expel it from your body. For the best results, Berger recommends eating five to ten grams of soluble fiber each day.

2. Eat more foods that contain omega-3 fatty acids

In addition to soluble fiber, healthy fats are another great type of food to incorporate into your daily diet in order to lower your cholesterol. "Omega-3 fatty acids help to lower triglycerides, a common fat in the blood that contributes to high cholesterol," Berger tells us.

Luckily, there are tons of delicious options out there, like fish, flaxseeds, hemp seeds, chia seeds, walnuts, and pumpkin seeds—the list goes on! "Fatty fish such as salmon, tuna, trout, sardines, and herring have the highest amount of omega-3s," Berger says, noting that The American Heart Association recommends eating fish two times per week. 

The bottom line

There are many steps you can take to lower your cholesterol, from exercising regularly to quitting smoking and cutting back on alcohol. And as it turns out, the food you eat plays one of the most important roles in your heart health. When it comes to the best changes to make in your diet in order to keep your cholesterol levels healthy, adding more soluble fiber and omega-3 fatty acids to the mix like Berger suggests is always a good idea.