The Heart Disease-Cholesterol Link

Heart disease of any type is called cardiovascular disease. Many people just call it CVD for short.

The most common CVD is coronary heart disease. This accounts for more than 50 percent of all cardiovascular diseases. Included in this disease are angina pectoris, or chest pain from the narrowing of your blood vessels as well as myocardial infarction -- or what you and I would call a heart attack.

Believe it or not, it really is possible to have more than one type of cardiovascular disease at the same time. (Isn't that a kicker?) It's not unusual, for example, for an individual to have both coronary heart disease and high blood pressure.

And it's really not that unusual to develop some type of cardiovascular disease. Your odds only increase as you age. According to the now famous Framingham Heart Study sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the average lifetime risk of developing coronary artery disease specifically once you reach the age of 49 and beyond is 49 percent for men and 32 percent for women.

Let's look at just a few of the health problems that involve high cholesterol. The first is atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. In effect, atherosclerosis is actually a group of diseases characterized by the thickening of the walls of your arteries. This thickening is caused by the continual buildup of plaque on these walls.

In addition to cholesterol, plaque is composed of various other types of debris that collect on areas that are inflamed on the inside of the walls of the blood vessels. This causes the narrowing of the passageway of your arteries, which, in turn, naturally restricts the flow of blood.

While you may see plaque as just one type of substance lining the inside of your artery walls, in reality, it really is a diverse substance. It forms in a variety of shapes and sizes. The smaller pieces of plaque accumulate throughout the arteries in the entire body. These can be incredibly difficult to detect.

Doctors have a much easier time finding the larger, hardened type of plaque that settles along the inside of the coronary arteries. These are usually the ones that cause chest pains associated with angina.

That doesn't mean that the small pieces can't be dangerous in and of themselves; because they can be. Recent research has discovered that the small pieces of plaque are less solid on the outside. This means that they aren't very stable. Consequently, the odds are greater that they may rupture, releasing cholesterol masses into the bloodstream.

This concentrated form of cholesterol then contributes to the formation of blood clots. Ultimately, if a small plaque buildup in the coronary arteries ruptures, forming a blood clot, it has the potential to trigger a heart attack.

If the plaque lands in the carotid artery instead of the coronary one, this may lead to a stroke. When the plaque breaks, the clots go to the brain where it causes a reduction in the blood flow or a complete blockage.

At least that's the simplified version of the relationship between these two items. But to get the fuller measure of exactly what's happening in your body, we need to take one more step.

You may not have been aware that there are really two different types of strokes. Cholesterol plays two amazingly different roles depending on what type of stroke we're talking about.

The most common category of stroke is called an ischemic stroke. Caused by a blockage of the flow of blood, the risk factors include high cholesterol. The risk factors for this are the same as for those of coronary heart disease.

But then there's another major type of stroke. It's called a hemorrhagic stroke. This is caused by the rupture of a blood vessel that bleeds into the brain. Surprisingly, an elevated cholesterol level actually reduces your risk of developing this type of stroke.

It's true! High levels of your total cholesterol as well as your LDL levels combined with low levels of your HDL certainly do increase your risk of developing peripheral arterial disease or PAD.

The amazing aspect of this situation is that an overwhelming number of women with PAD also possess high cholesterol levels (a whopping two out of three). Yet less than half of these women are actually aware that their cholesterol levels put them at risk.

Recent research not only bears this point out, but also adds another interesting dimension to the situation. It appears that for every 10-point increase in your total cholesterol, your risk of developing PAD rises by five to 10 percent.

Don't despair though! Research also reveals that your HDL level may play a more important role than the medical community once thought when it comes to PAD. It appears that possessing higher levels of HDL -- that healthy cholesterol we keep talking about -- actually lowers your risk of PAD by 10 percent. This is true even after other risk criteria are factored in.

How do we get those HDL levels up again? Natural ways to help raise the good cholesterol levels include: losing excess weight, consistent exercise, consuming healthy fats and enjoying a low cholesterol, low saturated fat diet.

Want to learn more about high cholesterol and natural lowercholesterolwithdiet.com/diets-lower-cholesterol ways to combat this disease? Visit my website at lowercholesterolwithdiet.com lowercholesterolwithdiet.com to get more helpful tips on ways to lower your cholesteorl levels through diet.