Hey guys!

High cholesterol! Everyone's always concerned about high cholesterol in St. Petersburg FL and the effects on heart disease and blood pressure, but what the heck is it?

I'm Doctor Christopher Hood from Hood Chiropractic and welcome too Heart Health Month!

If you didn't know, February is heart health month we want to be giving you things you can start implementing right now to reverse heart disease, lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol naturally right now in your body.

Let's Talk Cholesterol in St. Petersburg FL

So, with that, we want to talk about cholesterol, cholesterol is not good or bad. As a matter of fact, cholesterol is necessary in your body for hormone production, hair, skin and overall health. The problem is, if your cholesterol is elevated, it means that your body is inflamed. Now it's a big buzz on the internet and everything else people are talking about chronic inflammation. If you haven't heard that, you can look it up.

Chronic inflammation does not mean you're all swollen and puffy, it means the internal systems of your body are inflamed because of lifestyle. What happens is the Standard American Diet, which is processed food, chemicals, artificial colors and flavors, is the cause of inflammatory reactions inside your body. If you were to think about the inflammatory reaction as a fire, think of cholesterol level being the fire hose, so inflammation is the fire and your cholesterol is trying to calm that down. So, having high cholesterol levels are actually your body's defense mechanism due to the Standard American Diet and inflammation.

So, what we want to do is start lowering the inflammation, therefore lowering the cholesterol, blood pressure and heart disease risk. So how do we do that? First thing we're going to talk about this month is to start cutting out processed food. Start cutting out food that has artificial colors and flavors. If the label says 'monasobalobanuba', don't eat that, it is not good for you. Start eating natural foods, shop in the outer rim of the grocery store, stop buying food in a box. You have produce, vegetables, plenty of natural fats, and just really start calming down the inflammation by eating foods you know you should eat. We all know an apple is healthier for you than a candy bar so reach for the apple at snack time and you'll see if you stop eating process food and start drinking good clean water, the inflammation will calm down, your cholesterol levels will go down, and you'll lower you risk of blood pressure and heart disease long term and have Heart Health. That's what we want, that's what we're going for.

So, I'm doctor Christopher Hood, it's all good in the hood, I will see you next week, God bless you guys.