How to manage your cholesterol

Excess bad cholesterol can lead to heart disease or stroke, so take into account a few steps to manage your cholesterol levels.

Nutritionist Lovisa Nilsson has shared her top tips on how to keep your cholesterol levels in control, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

* Superfruits: Following recent nutritional studies, several fruits have been labelled 'superfoods' due to their ability to combat harmful fats and reduce bad cholesterol. For instance, it was recently revealed that strawberries have the ability to reduce LDL, the harmful form of cholesterol, by nearly 14 percent, according to research carried out by Università Politecnica Delle Marche in Italy.

* Unsaturated fats: Consuming omega-3 essential fatty acids, found in unsaturated fats, will help to lower the levels of bad cholesterol in the blood. Unsaturated fats include oily fish, nuts and seeds, ground flax seeds, olive oil and certain vegetables and fruits such as avocado.

* Fibre: Beans, pulses, vegetables, cereal and whole grain breads all have a high fermentable fibre content and are therefore difficult for the gut to digest so they attach to bad cholesterol and then remove it from the body via waste.

* Red wine: Red wine contains a plant compound called saponin which blocks the body's absorption of bad cholesterol, LDL. This news is not an excuse to drink large quantities of red wine and I do not recommend adding red wine to your diet purely for health reasons since alcohol consumption can lead to further health complications such as high blood pressure and liver disease.