Cholesterol is a tricky condition filled with strange looking letters and names such as chylomicrons, VLDL, IDL, LDL, triglycerides, and HDL. But what current research seems to be telling us is that out of all the possible pitfalls with runaway cholesterol levels perhaps the one that places a person most at risk of heart disease and stroke is a low HDL reading.
HDL is short for high density lipoprotein and because of its protein based composition is unable to deposit the wax like substance we know as cholesterol inside the artery walls. This task is generally left to its long lost careless cousin LDL, or low density lipoprotein. HDL could be described as a scavenger lipoprotein that gathers cholesterol and extricates it from the body through solid waste, thus giving that troublemaker LDL a lot less cholesterol to work with. For this reason some experts believe that receiving a low HDL reading, or a low HDL reading out of proportion to LDL is the single biggest risk factor in the world of cholesterol. Let's look at some more specific numbers.
Regardless of total cholesterol levels, the risk of heart attack is highest among men who have a low HDL reading of 37 mg/dl or below, and women whose HDL's are lower than 47 mg/dl. On the other hand, the risk of heart attack is lowest among men whose HDL's are higher than 53 mg/dl, and women whose HDL's are higher than 60 mg/dl. As you can see correcting low HDL levels are a very important part of avoiding a potentially life threatening heart attack.
But while correcting low HDL levels is very important, maintaining the proper balance between bad cholesterol (LDL) and good cholesterol (HDL) is also another important piece of the puzzle. In this area there are two categories, one for the healthy person with no family or personal history of heart attack or stroke and another for those who have had a coronary event, have a family history of coronary disease, or those who have at least two of the major risk factors for coronary artery disease (smoking, obesity, stress, inactivity).
*For healthy people with no personal history or family history of heart attack or stroke the ratio is about 1.7 to 1. For instance if your bad cholesterol is around 100 mg/dl your good cholesterol should be around 60 mg/dl or so.
*For those at risk the numbers are almost on par with one another with suggested bad cholesterol reading suggested to be about 75 mg/dl with good cholesterol around 60.
What Next? Lowering overall cholesterol while raising low HDL, in most cases, is about changing old habits, adopting new healthier habits, and enlisting the help of convention medications such as statins or natural cholesterol reducing remedies if needed. Put simply, this basically means finding ways to increase HDL (good cholesterol) and decrease LDL (bad cholesterol levels). Certainly the aforementioned statin drugs will be one of your options but they do carry a number of serious label warnings. The side effect risks have made lowered-cholesterol.com natural cholesterol reduction supplements combined with diet modification an alternative treatment combination worth considering.
Rob D. Hawkins is an enthusiastic advocate for the use of safe and effective high quality alternative health products and natural living, with over 10 years experience in the field. Learn more about natural remedies and natural health at purchaseremedies.com Purchase Remedies.com.
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