Fighting High Cholesterol in Healthy Aging

Tip for Healthy Aging: How to Fight High Cholesterol

Many medical problems are the result of high cholesterol levels. Cholesterol clogs the arteries, and when cholesterol levels become out of control, it can lead to a series of strokes and massive heart attacks.

Dealing with Cholesterol

If you have high cholesterol levels, you need to take steps towards controlling cholesterol. If you ignore your increasing cholesterol problem, it will become worse until it leads to serious ailments. You can do something right now to fight high cholesterol. Start exercising and do this at least 30 minutes every day. Make wise food choices. Check with your doctor on a regular basis; your doctor can test your cholesterol levels and if it starts to get high, he can prescribe medication to lower your cholesterol levels.

Basically, eating right and exercising every day are the two things you need to do when you have high cholesterol. Don't wait until it's too late to do something about your high cholesterol. If your cholesterol is already high, it won't go down overnight or quickly, but if you are consistent in exercising and eating right, your cholesterol will go down. Be generous to yourself; give yourself time to relax and do activities you enjoy as well as socialize. Being active can and will help your cholesterol levels down. If you smoke, giving up the habit can do wonders for your cholesterol. If you act now to get your cholesterol levels down, you can avoid heart attacks and strokes, which can may or may not be fatal. High cholesterol is also associated with diabetes and obesity.

There are two types of cholesterol: LDL and HDL. LDL is considered the bad type of cholesterol while HDL is considered the good type of cholesterol. You want to keep your LDL cholesterol down and your HDL cholesterol up. However, you need to be careful too because if your LDL and HDL cholesterol levels are combined with triglycerides, too high a level increases the odds of you having a stroke or a heart attack.

Cholesterol in Foods

All foods contain cholesterol unless cholesterol has been removed as indicated in food packages that say "cholesterol free." The amount of cholesterol varies from one food to the next. Cooking oil and grease contain a lot of cholesterol. Bread has cholesterol too. Butter and eggs have high cholesterol content. Make sure that you read the back of food packages and find out how much cholesterol is there before buying and eating them.

The Effects of High Cholesterol

Go to your doctor and get a blood test to find out how high your cholesterol level is. The normal cholesterol level is 130 or 140 over 200 mg/dl. If you can keep your cholesterol level within this range, you'll be fine.

Basically, high cholesterol can cause your arteries to harden. Blood flow to and from your arteries slows down, making your heart work harder and pumping unnaturally. This results to a high diastolic rate, increasing your risk of having a heart attack (which happens when your heart doesn't get blood flow to it due to clotting or blood vessels breaking) or stroke (which happens when your brain doesn't get enough blood flow to it because of decreased oxygen levels). High cholesterol also makes you a candidate for diabetes since cholesterol affects hemoglobin levels. Your doctor is the best source of cholesterol information so make sure you talk to him.