A lot of anxiety and distress comes up when people talk about cholesterol, but the fact is we need the substance in our bodies for a number of reasons.
This waxy substance is made in your liver and also comes from the foods you eat. It’s essential to the production of sex hormones, providing structure to tissues throughout your body and helping with bile production in your liver.
Cholesterol becomes a problem when you have too much of the wrong type, which left untreated can lead to a number of life-threatening conditions, including angina, heart disease, stroke, atherosclerosis, and heart attacks.
If you live in the Beverly Hills, California, area, and you’re dealing with high cholesterol and related problems, Dr. Shawn Veiseh and his dedicated staff can help you reduce your unhealthy cholesterol levels and improve your health.
To find out how to keep higher levels of good cholesterol and lower your risks of medical problems, let’s look at the basics of cholesterol, the causes of bad cholesterol, and what you can do to maintain healthy levels.
This fatlike material circulates in your blood, and there are a few different types that are likely present:
HDL is considered the good cholesterol because healthy levels protect against cardiovascular disease and carry the bad cholesterol back to your liver, where it’s broken down and eliminated from your body.
LDL is the bad cholesterol that leads to the buildup of fatty materials in your bloodstream, increasing your risk of heart disease.
This is the most common form of cholesterol that stores excess energy from what you eat and combined with LDL can raise your risk of heart attack and stroke.
In the best conditions for your body, you should have about 150 mg/dl (milligrams per deciliter) of total cholesterol, about 100 or less mg/dl of LDL, 40 mg/dl (50 in women) of HDL, and under 150 mg/dl of triglycerides.
An overabundance of LDL cholesterol in your blood is known as hyperlipidemia, or high cholesterol, and can be caused by a wide variety of factors. They include smoking, alcohol abuse, a diet high in saturated fats, a sedentary lifestyle, stress, obesity, and family history.
Some medications can contribute to high cholesterol, such as beta blockers, diuretics, hormonal birth control, antiretrovirals, and steroids. Conditions that affect these levels include liver and pancreas diseases, multiple myeloma, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), hyperthyroidism, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, lupus, HIV, and sleep apnea.
Here’s what you can do to reduce bad cholesterol and get healthier:
Since the food you eat plays a big part in the cholesterol you have, reducing foods with high LDLs is essential. This means reducing or eliminating saturated and trans fats and eating more foods with omega-3 fatty acids, soluble fiber, and whey protein. So, less fast food and more fish, walnuts, flaxseeds, oatmeal, brussel sprouts, kidney beans, apples, pears, and dairy.
Moderate physical activity helps increase your HDL cholesterol, so try to participate in sports, walking, running, biking, and aerobic activity for at least 30 minutes three times a week.
Extra weight means an increased risk of high cholesterol, so losing weight is an important goal to keep those levels down. The combination of exercise and changes in your diet will help you reach this goal and get healthier.
Both habits have several other hazards related to them, but both increase your LDL cholesterol and make the complications all the more likely. Just reducing your alcohol intake can make a difference, and stopping smoking can also help a great deal.
These basic changes can make a difference both in your general health and your risk of cardiovascular disease and other health issues. If you’re dealing with high cholesterol and you need to get it under control, make an appointment with Dr. Veiseh and his team today by calling our office or scheduling a visit online.
