Keeping our heart healthy is core to an optimum health. You are what you eat and eating the right food can keep your heart pumping healthily.

Clearly certain food can help lowering cholesterol, thus the risk of heart diseases. This is because the food you eat is at the heart of any treatment plan.

The following top 10 heart friendly foods are important for the health of your heart:

1. Oats

Oats contain beta-glucans, a soluble fibe that is responsible for cholesterol reduction. Eating about one-cup of cooked oatmeal a day significantly decreases blood cholesterol levels. Oats can be easily incorporated as part of your breakfast.

2. Flaxseed Oil

Flaxseed oil is an excellent source of Omega-3 and lignans that can help to reduce blood triglycerides, cholesterols, blood pressure, stickiness, as well as hot flushes.

3. Walnut

Eating walnuts can reduce your total cholesterol level by 12% and LDL cholesterol level by 16%. Walnuts contain a type of fat called linolenic acid, which lowers cholesterol and prevents blood clots.

4. Fish Oil

Fish oil are the fatty liquids expressed from certain cold-water fish (including salmon, mackerel, sardines, bluefish, herring, and tuna) that are a rich source of omega-3 essential fatty acids. As supplements, they are taken to thin the blood and inhibit clotting, lower high cholesterol, and strengthen cell membranes. They also have a natural anti-inflammatory effect.

5. Psyllium Husk

Psyllium husks are used to relieve constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, diverticular disease, and diarrhea. They are used as regular dietray supplement to improve and maintain regular GI transit. However, some recent research is also showing them to be promising in lowering cholesterol and controlling diabetes.

6. Apple Cider Vinegar

The potassium in apple cider vinegar is said to be beneficial to both the heart and blood pressure, and in some quarters this remedy is said to assist in making the blood thinner, and thereby assisting with blood pressure and in the prevention of a stroke.

7. Legumes and Beans

Beans have been long recognized as among those “good-for-you” foods. After all, they are nature’s second highest vegetable source of protein (the first is seaweed, if you happen to have a taste for it). Beans and their sister legumes, peas, make a nutritionally complete meal when combined with rice. Being high in soluble fiber–the same fiber found in oats–beans and peas can promote heart health.

8. Apple

Drinking 12 ounces of apple juice or eating two whole apples a day is beneficial. Research has shown that phytochemicals in apples could help cut the risk of death from heart disease or stroke in half

9. Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Of all cooking oils, olive oil contains the largest proportion (77%) of monounsaturated fat and has powerful antioxidants, which lowers LDL cholesterol without affecting HDL levels.

10. Lecithin

Lecithin is a fatty acid naturally found in egg yolks and soybean oil. It is taken to protect against heart disease, increase longevity, and improve memory. Lecithin is an important natural source of choline, sometimes considered one of the B-complex vitamins and a nutrient necessary for the healthy functioning of cells, nerves, and the brain.