High levels of blood cholesterol is one of the leading risk factors for heart disease. A variety of choices is available to assist you in lowering down your cholesterol levels like diet, exercise, supplements, and medications. However, before utilizing these options, a blood screening is needed to be done in order to determine if your cholesterol levels are high. Most of us, wanting to get lower results on our exam, tend to cheat before the exam. What we need to understand is that blood tests can help identify if you need interventions for your cholesterol levels and an accurate result would be beneficial for you.
There are some preparations that are needed to be done before a cholesterol test. Your preparations depend on the type of test you need and an analysis of your lipoprotein that measures your HDL, LDL, total cholesterol, and triglycerides require a few preparations for more accurate results.
Fasting is required before any blood tests done on you. Your physician would advise you not to eat or drink anything except water for 14 hours and not to drink alcoholic beverages for around 48 hours before your examination. This means that red wine before your cholesterol test is a big “NO- NO”. Fasting before your laboratory exam helps your doctor a more accurate reading of your blood so that he may be able to properly treat you with the right kind of treatment.
During eating, your body needs to process the food which takes hours to do. As food is being processed in your body, food components are being broken down and distributed throughout your blood stream. Cholesterol tests check the amount of cholesterol that can be found in your body and when you eat food, the fat from your food also travels through your blood. These fats from the food you eat may be detected in your test and get you inaccurate data.
Studies have shown that drinking a moderate amount of alcohol a day can significantly help in increasing your HDL levels or your high- density lipoprotein. This means that two glasses should be the limit for the men and one glass for the women. By alcoholic drink, we mean 1.5 oz of liquor, 5 oz. of red wine, and 12 oz. of beer. Red wine has proven that of all the alcoholic beverages present, can effectively lower down high cholesterol levels.
Physicians still aren’t sure how red wine lowers or affects our cholesterol levels. Most believe that the antioxidants called resveratol found in red wine are the ones that are good for our heart. Red wine helps raise our HDL cholesterol levels, all the while lessening blood clot formation in our arteries and prevent damages done by LDL cholesterol.
