Make that heart-friendly bowl of oatmeal even better for your cholesterol by mixing in some fresh berries instead of sugar.

A study showed that too much added sugar in the diet (particularly added sugar) could contribute to high cholesterol levels. But trading sugar for fresh fruit is a sweet way to cut back on the white stuff.

Sickeningly sweet

In a study, people who averaged about 90 grams of added sugar a day tended to have higher triglyceride levels and less of the good HDL cholesterol than did the people who typically ate less sugar. Other studies suggest that one of the monosaccharides in sugar may inhibit the removal of lipids from the blood.

Fruity sweets for your heart

Nixing the table sugar in your coffee and cereal is just one way to start cutting back. You can also sleuth out the high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) hidden in processed foods – like drinks, condiments, salad dressings and breads. A diet for high cholesterol should include no more than 100 calories of added sugar a day for women and 150 calories of added sugar a day for men.