Your Cholesterol Level - Do You Understand It?

The reasons are numerous for paying attention to your cholesterol level but one the most important is because an elevated cholesterol level can dramatically increase your change of having a heart attack or stroke. More and more, obesity has been shown to be one of the biggest contributing factors to high cholesterol. On the other hand, simply being obese doesn't mean you'll have high cholesterol and just because you are not overweight doesn't mean that your cholesterol level will be normal.

There are many things, in addition to obesity, that you need to take into consideration when trying to understand cholesterol levels such as the fact that there are both good and bad types of cholesterol. HDL cholesterol, which is considered the good type and then there is LDL cholesterol which is considered the bad form of cholesterol.

In a nutshell, your cholesterol levels will put you into one of three categories: desirable, borderline risk or high risk. If total cholesterol is less than 200mg/dL your cholesterol level risk category is considered desirable, which means your risk of heart attack is relatively low, unless you have other high risk lifestyle factors involved.

If total cholesterol is between 200 and 239mg/dL your cholesterol level risk category is considered borderline - approximately one-third of all people end up in this category. If you fall into this category it's recommended that you have your cholesterol checked about once a year, especially if your HDL or good cholesterol is less than 40mg/dL or you don't have other risk factors for heart disease.

Last but certainly not least, if your cholesterol level is 240mg/dL or above, your cholesterol level risk category is considered high risk and your chance of a heart attack and stroke is heightened. In addition, you have nearly twice the risk of other coronary problems.

In summary, the key point to remember is that the lower LDL or bad cholesterol is, the lower your total cholesterol level will be, which is clearly what you want. Therefore, it's in your best interest to do whatever you can in order to keep your LDL cholesterol as low as possible through diet and exercise. However, if you find that you are not able to lower your overall cholesterol with diet and exercise alone, you may want to consider statin or cholesterol drugs to get your cholesterol level risk category where you want it to be - desirable.

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