If you are thinking about how to be able to identify if your cholesterol is too much, the clear answer will surprise you: you cannot decipher by way of symptoms if your cholesterol levels have been raised. But if you ignore your elevated cholesterol, you are putting yourself in danger of getting a heart attack or a stroke.
Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in the world today.
Regrettably, there aren’t any signs of elevated cholesterol ordinarily. Thus, despite feeling healthy, you might still have dangerously high cholesterol levels and maybe not even understand it.
Signs or Symptoms
There are no apparent indicators of elevated cholesterol. Should you have symptoms, they manifest much later when the disease has progressed to a dangerous level.
In acute cases, there may be waxy residue on the skin, yellow deposits of cholesterol around your eyes or eyelids, and tiny clusters of lumps in the hands, elbows, and knees. The majority of these indicators are correlated with a hereditary form of the disorder called familial hypercholesterolemia.
The only best way to know for sure if you’ve got elevated cholesterol is via a lipid panel – a blood test that examines the vital lipids, or fats, in your bloodstream. High cholesterol can make your blood vessels have fatty deposits, which eventually grow, making it difficult for blood to freely flow through the arteries. If these deposits break suddenly and form a clot it can lead to a heart attack or stroke.
If your cholesterol is found to be too high, your health provider may recommend medication, changes in lifestyle, or perhaps a mixture of both, to bring your lipids back to a threshold level.
Risk Factors
Knowing your chances of developing elevated cholesterol can be crucial. Though you typically have no idea if you have high cholesterol, by knowing your risk factors you might be able to prevent the condition by checking it more often. Below are the major risk factors:
Imbalanced diet: Eating excessive saturated fat, found in animal products, and trans fats, found in snacks, can raise your cholesterol level. Foods high in cholesterol, such as red meat and full-fat dairy products, will also increase your cholesterol.
Obesity: If your body mass index (BMI) is 30 or greater you are at a greater risk of having high cholesterol.
Lack of exercise: Exercise helps boost your body’s HDL, or “good,” cholesterol while reducing your LDL, or “bad,” cholesterol.
Smoking: Excessive smoking can damage the walls of your blood vessels, making them more prone to accumulate fatty deposits.
Age: Your body’s metabolic process changes with your age. As you grow older, your liver becomes less able to remove LDL cholesterol.
Diabetes: High blood sugar contributes to higher levels of dangerous cholesterol called very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) and lower HDL cholesterol. High blood sugar also damages the lining of your arteries.
The golden 3 rules to keep your cholesterol level in check are to first get a blood test done annually, the second exercise daily, and the third eat a healthy fiber-rich diet.
