Cholesterol is a “waxy fat-like substance” found in your body. It’s very essential to build healthy cells in your body, and its increased levels of cholesterol in your body would put you at risk of heart diseases.
To understand how high cholesterol affects your body is very simple – Hight Cholesterol creates fatty deposits in your blood veins. With time these deposits grow, making it hard for blood in your veins to move freely cause high BP, and even with more time these deposits can break suddenly forming clots in your veins causing a heart attack or stroke.
High cholesterol can be treated and even prevented as yes! It’s true you can get high cholesterol through your inheritance but it is mostly the result of your unhealthy lifestyle choices.
So a healthy diet, exercise can help you prevent it.
What can cause High Cholesterol?
Medical Conditions – There are a few medical conditions that also come with the risk of high cholesterol.
- Chronic Kidney disease
- HIV/Aids
- Diabetes
- Hypothyroidism
- Lupas
Medications for other health problems – There are a few medicines that you are required to take for other problems that can cause high cholesterol
- Acne
- High Blood Pressure
- Cancer
- Irregular heartbeats
- Organ transplants
Preventable Causes – There are few causes that can be prevented these include
- Poor diet
- Obesity
- Lack of Movement
- Alcohol
- Smoking
At last, there is one more reason for high cholesterol that is age. With age, your liver loses the ability to remove the LDL ( Bad Cholesterol ) putting you at high risk for high cholesterol.
What’s good and bad cholesterol?
You must have heard about the terms good and bad cholesterol a lot on the tv ads by oil companies. But what exactly are they?
Cholesterol travels in your veins by attaching itself to proteins and the combination of cholesterol and protein that carries it is called a lipoprotein.
There are two types of Lipotrotien or cholesterol in your body.
- LDL ( low-density lipoprotein) The Bad Cholesterol – LDL carries the cholesterol from to your veins where it can get stuck to its walls and start building its deposits causing all the health problems
- HDL ( High-density lipoprotein) The Good Cholesterol – HDL carries the excess cholesterol from your veins to the liver where it can be disposed from your body.
Now you understand mostly everything about how cholesterol works let’s see a few ways to prevent it.
- Follow a diet with less Sodium (Salt) and add more fruits, veggies with whole grains in it.
- Get the good fats in your body. The less animal fat you consume the more it would help
- If you are BMI is over 30 you need to cut down your weight now.
- Your body is meant to do physical activities if you deprive it of that it would never function well that’s why it’s necessary for you to exercise at least 30 mins a day.
- Quit smoking
- Drink alcohol in moderation, if at all
- Manage stress
Even after all the care sometimes you can prevent high cholesterol, how would you know when to call your doctor about it? The answer is regular testing as high cholesterol doesn’t have specific symptoms you need regular testing to keep tabs on it. So if you are over 40 you need to get it tested at least once a year so you can keep ahead of it.