HCholesterol can cause cholesterol in the heart and strokes – but levels can sneak without showing any symptoms. For this reason, if you are more than 40 years old, cholesterol should be examined every five years. It is a simple concept enough, but, such as alcohol and other things that can damage slowly, invisible our bodies, cholesterol can feel a slightly sticky, hovering in the background less face than everything at the forefront of a crowded life.
This does not help when myths fly online, such as eggs are unhealthy because they contain cholesterol. Or when some scientists and low-carb meals and high lipids significantly reduce the importance of cholesterol in heart disease-the pretext that sugar is a greater risk to our health, despite all the evidences on the contrary. It also does not help us to determine the suffering that there are many different ways to provide cholesterol levels – and thus explain them.
However, Manuel Maeer, an Emberial Cooldge professor, says it is important to act early to avoid levels that crawl: “Take prevention seriously, because if your cholesterol is high, if it is for decades, it accumulates in your arteries.”
He says it may help think of your circulatory system as a wash. “If you have a lot of hard water, there is a great risk of your clothes washing machine that gets a blockage.” When it comes to high levels of bad cholesterol, obstruction can cause cardiovascular disease and can lead to heart attacks and brain strokes. “Exposure is what harms vessels over time,” Mayer added.
So what is the reality of cholesterol? How do you maintain healthy levels?
What is cholesterol?
“Cholesterol” is a shrewd substance that is naturally found as part of the blood circulation, “says Tercy Parker, a large nutritionist in the same organization, says,” We need a certain amount, such as hormones – such as estrogen and testosterone. Our cells need cholesterol in cholesterol to make them rigid and criminal. But when these levels go high, this is a problem. ”Our bodies make cholesterol, but levels are also affected by lifestyle and genetics.
There are two types of cholesterol in the blood. LDL lipoprotein (LDL) is known as “bad cholesterol” because many can cause plaque accumulation in the arteries, which increases the risk of a heart attack or stroke. HDL is good. “HDL helps the liver metabolism and re -represent LDL in the bloodstream,” McGRAth says, which means that HDL helps keep LDL levels in balance.
“What has been shown in many studies is that if you reduce bad cholesterol, you reduce cardiovascular events,” Mayer says.
When should you check cholesterol?
MCGRATH says NHS recommends five -year checks for those between the ages of 40 and 74, with annual health checks for people 75 and above. “But if there are concerns about a family history of heart disease, or if you suffer from angina type of chest, then anyone who has the right to ask his doctor in the check.”
What do the tests show?
Sometimes after the initial cholesterol test, you may get one number of LDL and HDL cholesterol in your blood. Ideally, the results will show a full fat profile, as McGRAth says, “Because this gives you the complete collapse of HDL, LDL and Triglycerides, another type of fat that we find in the blood.” All these details together help draw a clearer image.
HDL levels should be healthy higher than 1MMOL/L for men or 1.2 mm/L for women. “I don’t think I have heard before someone who says they have a very high HDL,” McGrath says. LDL levels are healthy if it is less than 3 mm/l. You should also get the cholesterol ratio, which compares the amount of good cholesterol (HDL) that you have within the total cholesterol levels. It is the total cholesterol divided into your HDL levels, and it is considered healthy if it is less than six – the better.
What are triglycerides?
This other type of blood fat is important because, as McGrath says, “Some people can have good levels of cholesterol in the blood but highly triglycerides, and still endangers them.” Triple fats are, mainly, “unused calories, a form of stored energy. Like LDL, you still need some – if you use it for energy, it will be removed from your blood – you do not want much of it.” Enough is 2.3 mm/l or less, unless you are asked to fast before your blood test, and in this case the health limit is 1.7 mm/l.
Where does genetics come?
While following a healthy diet and active lifestyle is necessary for comprehensive health, in many of us, Mayer says: “The levels of fat are genetic, and if you have a high percentage of cholesterol in the blood, and you were unfortunate that you have inherited this from your parents, you need a drug, because you cannot reach the target level once changes in the diet.”
McGrath says that the most common disorder of genetic fat is to excessive blood blood cholesterol, which affects one in every 250 people: “If your father or brother is less than 55 years old when they have a heart attack, or that your mother or sister was less than 65 years, this is an indication that you may have – and deserves to get the degree of polyester.” Some people, unfortunately, may be the first to be the first. A person, “she adds.” So they have no family history and discovered by chance, or, unfortunately, they have a heart attack. “
What affects the risk of heart disease?
Cholesterol levels are usually given as part of the “main risk assessment”, which takes a set of factors in mind. “Age, weight, family history, smoking, alcohol intake, whether you have high blood pressure, race and sex. Men are at a slightly increasing risk of high blood pressure, for example,” says McGrath. “If the main risk assessment is higher than 10 %, you will be shown on statin.” Statin prevents an enzyme that needs the liver to make cholesterol, which reduces the amount of LDL cholesterol in the blood. It also reduces the risk of cutting the paintings from the artery walls and causes blockage.
If you offer statin, can you try lifestyle changes instead?
If the cholesterol is not high to genetics, you have the right to say that you want to change lifestyle changes before the drug, says McGrath. “Most GPS will be ready to allow this person to try to reduce him himself and then see how he arrives. It is a conversation for the doctor and you.” The doctor may think about the amount of your cholesterol level above five, and other risk factors.
Exercise on the wonders of this most important cholesterol rate by reducing LDL and increasing HDL. And following a healthy diet (more than that below) not only affects the amount of fat that floats around your blood, but also helps to wipe the LDL cholesterol. “On the surface of the liver, you have LDL receptors, which are responsible for cholesterol metabolism,” says McGrath. “You want a lot of these, so there is more to receive bad cholesterol.” This reinforcement in LDL receptors also occurs when eating statin.
After making positive lifestyles, McGRATH says you can start seeing the results after six to eight weeks. “It can be fast. A new goal is likely to be set.”
“When you ask people to make changes on their diet, we make them come back in three months and see what an effect on cholesterol levels. This is true most of the time, five out of seven days, you are likely to do everything well.”
How does body weight affect cholesterol levels?
Anyone who suffers from weight gain or obesity in the blood will not have, however, McGrath says: “It is a contributing factor. Decrease in your weight. “
What are the best foods for good cholesterol?
Parker says that all dietary fibers help lower cholesterol in the blood, but the soluble fibers that you find in oats, beans and lentils have an additional effect. “It is a certain type of fiber called beta -glucan. It forms a gel in the intestine that stops the absorption of cholesterol in the body, and then secretes it. It can help about 3G per day in maintaining or lowering cholesterol levels.” It will provide a bowl of porridge with about 40 grams of oats about 1.4 grams of glucan beta.
Parker adds that oats, beans and legumes are high in both general fibers and soluble fibers, “and” large -fat protein “, adds Parker. “So when you replace meat in the diet with beans and lentils, you get this double procedure to help lower cholesterol.” This is part of the reason why a large vegetarian diet is made: “more fiber, more vitamins and minerals.” Most of us still consume only three of the five parts recommended of fruits and vegetables a day. “This includes things like nuts and unused seeds as well, because they contain unsaturated healthy fats, as well as fibers, vitamins and other minerals. You may have heard all these classified foods as a“ wallet diet ”, as a set of foods that work together to help lower cholesterol.”
Parker says that “unsaturated” fat means “unilateral oils that we find in things such as olive oil, turnip oil, avocado, olives, and nuts such as almonds, hazelnuts, and pistachios, and do not forget low things.”
What are the worst foods for cholesterol levels?
“When we talk about lowering cholesterol in the blood, it is about reducing saturated fats in the diet, and we know that this is linked to the high cholesterol LDL,” says Parker.
High foods saturated meat and high -fat dairy products such as butter and cream. Parker also mentions “tropical oils, such as coconut (which contains about 85 % of saturated fats) and palm oil (which contains about twice the saturated fat of butter). They are foods that tend to raise cholesterol levels in cholesterol, and we know that when it replaces unsaturated fats, there is a decrease in the risk of heart disease.”
Sugar foods should remain to a minimum. Choose low -fat foods that added sugar to make them more acceptable to avoid them. “Once again, they were removing fat from the products and replacing them with sugar due to the exemption, and that wasn’t good.” Very treated foods, also, are rich in saturated fats and should be reduced in your diet.
What about food cholesterol in eggs and other foods?
“You often get myths surrounding things like eggs, shellfish and food cholesterol,” says Parker. These foods contain cholesterol, but this, she says, “has a simple effect on cholesterol levels in the blood, and it is important to reduce saturated fat, which we know is to increase cholesterol.” Most people can enjoy these elements as part of a healthy diet. “Exclusion is those who have family blood cholesterol, as the body makes a lot of cholesterol, and part of their instructions is to get less of these types of foods.”
When do you need something more than statin?
If you have high levels of cholesterol in the border line, or high levels of mild cholesterol, Mayer says: “It is extremely important to emphasize that statins are a very safe drug. They are widely used and effective in reducing cholesterol. However, they are usually useful of financial cholesterol, which reduces this, if it is useful that there is enough cholesterol, then this is considered useful. New PCSK9 inhibitors.