High Cholesterol

High cholesterol is chiefly caused by augmenting the cholesterol that is produced naturally in the body by absorbing additional amounts from foodstuffs. For those who are eating a high protein diet, containing a large amount of milk or eggs, this is not good news, since these also contain cholesterol.

High levels of cholesterol has been linked to increased instances of heart disease, due to the build-up of cholesterol in the arteries, which eventually hardens and narrows the arteries, causing the flow of blood to the heart to be reduced. This will, if left unchecked, result in a heart attack when blood (carrying oxygen) no longer reaches the heart, and the muscle fails.

To confuse the issue, there are actually two kinds of cholesterol – LDL and HDL. When you go for a test to determine the amount of cholesterol in your bloodstream, the doctor will no doubt run through the consequences of the numbers with you, but it never hurts to be forewarned.

Firstly, HDL, or good cholesterol, helps to clear LDL, or bad cholesterol from the blood. LDL is the artery clogging cholesterol that most people mean when they refer to having high cholesterol levels. Subsequently, we can say that high HDL levels are good, while high LDL levels are bad.

In the worst case, you might find that you have high cholesterol levels coupled with low HDL levels, meaning that the risk of a heart attack is elevated since the body does not have sufficient quantities of HDL to remove the bad cholesterol from the bloodstream.

High cholesterol can be treated in a variety of different ways. If you have sufficient HDL in the bloodstream, then it is a simple case of changing your diet and lifestyle so that the LDL levels can be naturally reduced. This might not remove the deposits from the artery walls, so it is vital that a cholesterol check is taken every 5 years or so.

This preventative measure will mean that potential cholesterol related problems are caught before they become a risk and need medical treatment.

In some cases, there are drugs which can help to reduce the cholesterol, but these are most effective when the diet is also changed at the same time, so some lifestyle changes are inevitable. Of course, adopting a low cholesterol lifestyle will also help to avoid the issue completely.

This is preferable, since, as with many drugs that interfere with natural processes, there are side effects; anything from muscle tenderness through to allergic skin reactions and abnormal liver function.

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