High Cholesterol - What you need to know...
INTRODUCTION
In medical term, we call escalation of fat content in the blood
as "High cholesterol". When too much of the fat substance
increases in your blood, it gets accumulated on the walls of
arteries and results in their hardening. As a consequence,
arteries get narrow and either the blood flow to heart is slowed
down or gets blocked. Even the supply of oxygen gets less and as
both blood and oxygen are the mandatory requirements for the
active working of heart, shortage of their supply could lead to
major heart attack and unbearable chest pain. High cholesterol
is one of the major causes of heart disease and it is the numero
uno factor that is taking lives of women in America. Near about
one million Americans are affected by heart diseases every year
and among them 50 million succumb to death. People of all age
groups are effected by high cholesterol.
SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF HIGH CHOLESTEROL
There are no such different signs and symptoms of high
cholesterol and study shows that people often come to know about
their heart diseases due to high cholesterol quite late. The
only visible reasons are obesity and that a person gets tiered
very easily.
RISK FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH HEART DISEASES
As told in the beginning, that high cholesterol results in
various heart diseases and there are various risk factors
associated with high cholesterol that increase the risk of heart
diseases. Though many of the risk factors are controllable, some
of them cannot be controlled. The risk factors that you cannot
control is the age factor and family history of long heart
diseases. The controllable risk factors, about which a person
can do something and take their control with the help of
doctor's consultation and proper medication includes diabetes,
smoking, high blood pressure, obesity, and physical
inactivity.
CAUSES OF HIGH CHOLESTEROL
There are various reasons that are the causes of high
cholesterol. Let's have a look at the major causes of high
cholesterol.
Alcohol: A moderate amount of alcohol, does not
increase cholesterol, rather it increases HDL (good)
cholesterol but on the other hand it does not minimize LDL
(bad) cholesterol. But this does not mean that one should
increase the alcohol intake as high intake will lead to the
damage of liver, high blood pressure, and high raising of
triglyceride levels in the body.
Mental Stress: High stress for a long period of time
results in the escalation of cholesterol in the body. You
should try to remain calm and improve your eating habits.
Heredity: This is the genetic factor and the high
cholesterol factor is inherited in the genes of the person.
Familial Hypercholesterolemia is one of the specific kind of
inherited high cholesterol. It effects only 1 in 500 people
suffering from the problem of high cholesterol.
Eating Habits: If a person intakes diet that constitutes
high level of cholesterol and fat, risk of various heart
diseases are developed automatically. One should avoid eating
food with high animal fats.
Age and gender factor: As the women get older and their
menopause stops their cholesterol levels rise in comparison to
men and they develop greater degree of risk factors related to
heart disease. Women at age 50 have higher cholesterol in
their blood normally than men at age around 60-65
Weight: Overweight will increase the cholesterol levels
in your blood and you will develop major risk factors of heart
disease easily.
Be happy, stay healthy, exercise daily, and have nutritious and
healthy diet. Save your heart and live a healthy and long
life.