2 Smart Foods for Cholesterol and Pain

Hi, Dr. Kevin Soden here with two tropical foods to add to your menus. The fact that macadamia nuts are so rich and healthy unsaturated fats more than almost any other nut, appears to make up for the fact that they also contain some saturated fat. When people with moderately high cholesterol ate a diet that included a handful of macadamia nuts daily for five weeks, they lowered both total and bad LDL cholesterol about 9% more than when they just ate an average American diet.

If you eat macadamias though, use then in place of unhealthy fat in your diet. Juicy pineapple contains an anti-inflammatory enzyme called bromelain, that may help tame achy back or bum knee. Bromelain seems to sooth your cells by reducing the migration of white blood cells to areas where there's inflammation, like sunburn skin, injured muscles, and arthritic joints. If you're not a pineapple fan, you can get bromelain straight from a supplement.

You can try about 100 milligrams of bromelain a day for sore joints if your doctor approves. For more ways to watch your waist, check out all our smart tips, right here.