High Density Lipoprotein has remarkable anti-inflammatory properties and those with high levels over 70 mg/DL are said to have the "longevity syndrome"

Levels of 60 mg/DL or more in HDL are ideal and an increase of 1 mg/DL in HDL cholesterol has been proven to decrease the risk of heart disease by 2 to 3%. If that isn't enough to convince you of the importance of improving your HDL levels, read on.

HDL collects cholesterol from your arterial walls and transports it to your liver to be metabolized. HDL also keeps your arteries healthy through anti-inflammatory properties that are beneficial. HDL has been proven to be an independent risk factor (from LDL and total cholesterol) only in the past few years. Now, it's a very popular topic and in the news quite often.

Here are 9 steps you can take to increase HDL concentration:

1. Aerobic Exercise

Regular aerobic exercise that raises your heart rate for at least 20 to 30 minutes will help increase your HDL levels. Incidentally, exercise will also help you lose weight which increases HDL as well. Recent studies related to exercise and HDL levels have been popular in the news lately. "Overall, the researchers found, exercisers increased their HDL cholesterol by a modest but significant 2.53 mg/dL, which equates to a roughly 5 percent drop in heart disease risk for men and a nearly 8 percent reduction for women." [1]

2. Supplement Fish Oil

Fish oil can increase HDL over a long period of time. You can get this from any omega-3 supplement or soy foods, green leafy vegetables, and walnuts.

3. Take Niacin With Doctor Supervision

Niacin or vitamin B-3 has been proven to raise HDL by as much as 15% to 35%. However, you need to take large doses of niacin for it to be effective. This makes treatment to be considered a drug and should be administered by your doctor because of potentially harmful side effects when taken in higher doses.

4. Smoking Cessation

If you are already a non-smoker, then I guess you are out of luck on this one, but smoking cessation does raise HDL levels.

5. Eliminate Trans Fatty Acids

Trans fatty acids are a double whammy because they not only reduce HDL cholesterol, but they increase LDL cholesterol. These can be identified as partially hydrogenated vegetable oils on many nutrition labels on foods.

6. Alcohol Moderation

While having a drink or two per day can help with increasing hdl levels, drinking more can lead to more health problems including heart disease. If you don't already, you might want to consider drinking a glass of wine with dinner.

7. Increase Monounsaturated Fats

These are oils like avocado, olive, canola and those found in peanut butter. They can increase HDL concentration without raising total cholesterol. Definitely a good contributor to raising HDL diets.

8. Add Soluble Fiber

Soluble fibers are those found in vegetables, fruits, and oats. You should aim for at least two servings per day. Soluble fibers are great because they also help lower LDL cholesterol levels.

9. Avoid Ultra Low Fat Diets

Losing weight is always good for your health, but having too little fat in your diet can be a problem. It has been proven that eliminating too much fat from your diet can reduce your HDL cholesterol.