Cholesterol Information
High cholesterol,a major risk factor for heart and blood vessel disease, is most effectively treated with a combination of diet,exercise and cholesterol lowering medications.
When treating high cholesterol,ask your doctor what your treatment goals are as these will vary depending on each individual patient’s current state of health.
Regular exercise can be extremely effective at not only lowering total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol,but also at increasing HDL cholesterol.
Meet with a registered dietician to discuss an aggressive yet practical dietary approach to lowering your cholesterol.
Symptoms
If you are wondering about high cholesterol symptoms, the answer may surprise you: Most often there are no symptoms. But you ignore your high cholesterol, it may eventually lead to serious heart disease.
Heart disease has now surpassed cancer as the number one cause of death in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. High cholesterol is one of the important components risk factors for heart disease. Unfortunately, no symptoms are associated with high cholesterol. So, despite feeling healthy, you could still have dangerously high cholesterol levels and not even know it.
So, How Can I Tell If I Have High Cholesterol?
The only way to find out if you have high cholesterol is through a cholesterol test. A cholesterol test is a blood test that will look at the key lipids, or fats, that are in the blood, such as:
•LDL
•HDL
•Triglycerides
•Total cholesterol
If your cholesterol levels are not within the normal ranges, your healthcare provider may recommend a low-fat diet, exercise, medication, or a combination of these. The current guidelines recommend that everyone over the age of 20 should get their cholesterol checked at least once every five years. However, if you have a family history of high cholesterol, or you have been diagnosed with a chronic condition, such as diabetes or heart disease, you may consider checking your cholesterol more frequently. In some cases, high cholesterol is found by accident at a routine checkup –- and many people are surprised to be diagnosed with high cholesterol when they are otherwise feeling healthy.
Other Ways To Tell If You're At Risk For High Cholesterol
Knowing your risk of having high cholesterol is also important. Some risk factors for having high cholesterol are things that we can change, such as diet and exercise. However, some factors we cannot change (such as diseases or age). If you have any of the conditions listed below, you are at risk of having high cholesterol and should get checked if you have not already done so:
•Sedentary lifestyle (lack of exercise)
•Poor diet
•Smoking
•Certain medications
•Age (the older you are, the more you are at risk)
•Family history of high cholesterol
•Certain diseases (diabetes, certain thyroid gland conditions)
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