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How to Use Garlic Extract to Lower Cholesterol

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By eHow Contributing Writer
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For many patients, lowering cholesterol is not simply a matter of eating the right foods and exercising. In some cases, genetics play just as important a role in determining your likelihood of having high cholesterol as your lifestyle choices. In those with a genetic predisposition to high levels of cholesterol, statins have long been the drug of choice. A natural alternative to statins is aged garlic extract, which can be used in the same manner to lower cholesterol.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Instructions

Things You'll Need:

  • Aged garlic extract (AGE)
  • Physician
  • Lipid panel blood work
  • Healthy diet
  • Exercise

    Take Aged Garlic Extract to Lower Cholesterol

  1. Step 1

    Talk to your doctor about the possible causes of your high cholesterol. If diet and exercise have not successfully helped you lower your cholesterol, your liver may be the culprit. Some patients are genetically predisposed to produce more cholesterol than others.

  2. Step 2

    Find out whether you should treat your liver's overactive cholesterol production by taking 900 mg of aged garlic extract daily.

  3. Step 3

    Understand that aged garlic extract contains a substance called S-allyl cysteine, which has been shown to inhibit the liver's production of a cholesterol-producing enzyme called HMG-CoA. By reducing the performance of this enzyme, your liver produces less naturally occurring cholesterol.

  4. Step 4

    Ask your doctor whether you should be taking an aged garlic extract in conjunction with your statin cholesterol drug treatment. Studies published by Pennsylvania State University indicate that patients may increase their success in lowering their cholesterol by utilizing a combination of garlic extract supplements and a prescribed statin.

  5. Step 5

    Know that the Pennsylvania State University study seems to indicate that aged garlic extract helped lower the overall cholesterol level in participating patients while also lowering the ratio of LDL cholesterol (the "bad" cholesterol) to HDL cholesterol (sometimes referred to as "good" cholesterol).

  6. Step 6

    Use aged garlic extract to help decrease the formation of cholesterol plaque in the arteries. This treatment may be specifically indicated for those patients who have undergone bypass surgery in an effort to reduce future blockage of the arteries and should only be undertaken with your doctor's permission.

  7. Step 7

    Recognize that it is important to use diet and exercise in your efforts to lower your cholesterol, in addition to daily use of aged garlic extract. Diet and exercise can help reduce the amount of cholesterol your body absorbs from the food you eat, while aged garlic extract acts directly on your liver to reduce the amount of cholesterol it makes.

Tips & Warnings
  • Taking large doses of garlic may result in unpleasant body odor due to garlic's tendency to exude from the skin's pores.
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