Having high cholesterol levels don’t always mean that you will get serious heart disease but they should be interpreted as the first sign of a necessary life style change. What cholesterol levels however are considered high or bad? That depends on a few factors, such as your age, your weight and whether you have a family history of heart diseases.
These all can put you into a high risk or a very high risk group if your stats are not normal. You might want to have a fasting blood lipoprotein profile, make sure that you have an idea what your doctor talks about when you look these numbers over with him.
Not all blood cholesterols are bad, some even help reduce the risk of a coronary artery disease. The bad type is called LDL, Low-Density Lipoprotein, and it’s the problematic blood content. Cholesterols help build up the membranes of your cells, so too low results are also considered bad, but in the modern society we eat more of it than what our body can use.
In the United States these levels are given in a mg/dL scale, where 200 mg/dL in total or less is desired. If it falls between 200 and 240, your doctor will also take a look at the LDL and HDL levels to determine if you need treatment and if there is anything else you could do to lower it. Sometimes there is no need for additional actions as high HDL (good cholesterol) outweigh the LDL. HDL can help carry away buildup found on the walls of arteries. This disease is also called atheroma and is a very high risk factor for heart attacks or sudden hearth death.
The case is usually less dramatic than that and you will be able to get back the balance between HDL and LDL with as much as eating more healthy food and exercise more. Both are proven ways of reducing your LDL levels and total cholesterol level and increasing HDL levels. It is up to your doctor to decide if you need further medication, but with a borderline high value you most probably can work on it without pills.
If you are over 35 and a man, or over 45 and a woman you should take extra measures to find out if you have a lipoprotein disorder. High cholesterol levels don’t kill people but they put them into risk factor groups that are further worsened by smoking, family history or obesity. If you fall into any of those three, see your doctor and have your levels tested.