Do You Know The Top Dangers That you should Watch For That Are Associated With High Cholesterol?

There are actually two types of dangers or risks when it comes to high cholesterol: Uncontrollable risks and controllable risks. The uncontrollable risks are those that you are born with and have no control over the fact that you have these risk factors for cholesterol.

There is much talk today regarding high cholesterol. You would have to have been living under a rock not to know that high cholesterol can lead to heart disease.

Do you know the top dangers that you should watch for that are associated with high cholesterol? There are perhaps 50% of Americans that do not know what these dangers are because that is the percentage of Americans with high levels of cholesterol.

That statistic shows that for Americans, having high cholesterol is commonplace. It could also mean that Americans ignore the two top dangers. Are you curious as to what those dangers are?

There are actually two types of dangers or risks when it comes to high cholesterol: Uncontrollable risks and controllable risks.

The uncontrollable risks are those that you are born with and have no control over the fact that you have these risk factors for cholesterol. The controllable risks are those that you can have some measure of control over.

The risk factors that are uncontrollable for high cholesterol are: gender, age and family history.

If you are born female, once you pass the point of menopause, your risk for LDL cholesterol or the "bad" cholesterol going up is increased. As the LDL cholesterol level rises in her bloodstream, so will her risk for heart disease.

We all age, just try to stay the save age, and you will find out quickly that age is something you have no control over.

Bad Cholesterol " During follow-up study participants were assessed by phone interview, clinic visits at 6-month intervals. Assessments identified cardiovascular events, any hospitalizations and also mortality. Bad Cholesterol

Your risk for high cholesterol increases as you age. Men who are age 45 and older have an increased risk for high cholesterol and women who are aged 55 and older are at an increased risk for high cholesterol.

If you have a family history (blood relation) of high cholesterol especially if you have a family history of heart disease at an early age (earlier than age 55 if male and before age 65 if female).

You certainly cannot control who your blood relations are ask any pair of fighting siblings!

The risk factors for high cholesterol that you can have some control over are: your diet, your weight, and your physical activity level.

Our diets are made up of many things (everything we eat contain substances). The food items we select to eat each day contain substances that are either good nutritionally for us or add no significant value to our nutritional needs.

Some foods we select can even harm us such as those that raise our total LDL cholesterol levels such as foods containing saturated fats. If you are overweight for your age and body size it can cause your LDL cholesterol level (the bad one) to go up and your HDL level (the good one) to go down.

To be heart healthy it is good for the HDL level to be high and the LDL level to be low.

When these levels are the opposite of what is healthy for us that can increase our risk for heart disease.