Cholesterol and decreasing your risk of heart disease are linked increasingly more today as UK citizens become more aware of a connection between the {blood cholesterol level} and the risk of heart attack, stroke, or other cardiac condition.
LDL cholesterol is also known as the “bad cholesterol“, because higher levels of it in your blood stream have been associated with an increased risk for coronary heart disease. If diet, exercise and healthy living is not enough to lower the LDL numbers or elevate the HDL numbers it may be time to tackle the issue head-on and make some medical decisions. Some of us like to avoid medications simply because of the side effects that in some cases can accompany them. Others prefer not to have to endure the cost of prescription medications. Your doctor can offer you guidance on this next step in the quest to control your cholesterol and enjoy a longer and healthier life.
To be able to decrease the bad cholesterol and elevate the good cholesterol it is necessary to understand what determines these levels in your bloodstream. Your liver produces and also secretes into your bloodstream LDL cholesterol. Your blood helps to remove some LDL from your bloodstream. If there is a deficiency of LDL receptors you will tend to have high LDL levels.
Heredity and diet can play a major role regarding an individuals LDL level, your HDL level and your total cholesterol level. Individuals with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) have a lowered number of or even nonexistent LDL receptors on the surface of their liver cells. Some of these individuals might also have a natural tendency to develop coronary artery disease as well as to get heart attacks during their early adulthood. Some people have raised levels of LDL in their blood through an increase in the other way we get LDL in the blood, which is through dietary cholesterol. Diets high in saturated fats and cholesterol can tend to elevate the LDL level in the bloodstream. You receive saturated fats from meat and dairy products. Certain vegetable oils are made from cocoa, palm, or coconut oils and are also high in saturated fats.
At this time, lowering LDL cholesterol is the foremost emphasis of the medical community in the fight to prevent heart disease and strokes. This is why doctors and nutritionists concentrate on diet. The medical community has shown its belief that there are a number of benefits to reducing the LDL cholesterol such as:
- Stopping or cutting down the creation of fresh cholesterol plaques in the walls of the arteries leading to the heart and brain
- Reducing the plaque that has already developed on the artery walls
- Being able to widen the arteries that have already restricted to increase blood flow
- Avoid blood clot formation by stopping the rupture of cholesterol plaques.
- Lower the risk for heart attack and for stroke and help the carotid and cerebral arteries that lead to the brain by retarding the creation of atherosclerosis in those arteries.
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