What Causes High Cholesterol | Prevention?

In the body, cholesterol is found in the lipids (fats) in the blood. It is a waxy substance, and the body needs certain amounts of this waxy substance for certain activities (like for building healthy cells). But when your cholesterol is too over or too high then this can lead to some serious health problems -- your risk of having heart disease increases! What causes high cholesterol and what are the best steps you should do to prevent it?

You may also like to read about symptoms of high cholesterol and what is normal cholesterol level, before continuing!

In the blood vessels, the chance of developing fatty deposits increases when we have hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol). This can lead to serious problem to the function of arteries -- the blood flow will be difficult to flow through the arteries. Then finally the heart will not get adequate O2-rich blood. As a result, your risk of having heart disease & heart attack increases!

What are causes of high cholesterol?

There are some factors or causes of high cholesterol, some of them may include:

1. Medicines! There are some medicines (such as corticosteroids, beta-blockers, estrogen, and thiazide diuretics) that may contribute to decrease your HDL (good cholesterol) and increase the levels of your triglyceride -- Talk with your doctor for more in-depth information!
2. If there is a family member with high cholesterol in your family, your chance of having the same condition is relatively high. Because hypercholesterolemia may also run in family -- but fortunately it can be treatable & preventable!
3. Gender and age! In many cases, high cholesterol is relatively more common in men who are over 50 of the age and women with menopause. But generally, once we (both men and women) reach the age of 20, our cholesterol start to rise naturally.
4. Obesity. People with overweight have higher chance of decreasing HDL and increasing triglycerides!
5. Cigarette smoking also can decrease the levels of your good cholesterol.
6. Certain diseases! High levels of cholesterol may also be triggered by some diseases, such as kidney disease (chronic kidney disease), hypothyroidism, or other problems associated with kidney.
7. Having poor exercise! If you are inactivity individual or have lack of exercise (lack of physical activity), your chance of lowering your HDL is higher.
8. And eating too over /too much unhealthy foods, particularly foods that high in cholesterol, trans-fat (like packaged foods & fried foods), and saturated fat (like egg yolks, cheese, meats, whole milk, and butter).

Prevention

For the prevention, you can avoid all controllable factors or causes of high cholesterol which may include:

1. If you are smoking -- you have to stop smoking as earlier as possible!
2. If you have poor exercise, then you should change it! Do exercise regularly!
3. Don’t eat too much all foods that can make your cholesterol worse. You can also consider eating foods to lower cholesterol!
4. Avoid overweight -- keep maintaining your healthy weight!
5. If you love drinking alcohol, make sure to drink it in moderation!
6. And don’t forget to get regularly cholesterol tests. It should be done once in 5 years for individuals over 20 years of old, and should be more frequently for 35 years of old or older (men) and 45 years of old or older (women).

If you in doubt to your cholesterol levels, talk & discuss with your doctor to get more detailed information!
__________
Reference: MayoClinic and WebMD
Image credit to ‘Getty Images’ for illustration