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eLearning Series: Cholesterol
My Cholesterol Level Is Too High -
What Can I Do?
( 8 pages )
Causes
Of High Cholesterol
If you recall,
we mentioned that cholesterol can only attach to the inner
lining of the artery if it has been damaged. How
does that damage occur?
Evidence points
to “free radical” damage as being one of the culprits of
arterial wall damage. Free
radicals are found all
around us. They are highly reactive substances like polluted
air, radiation, tobacco smoke, herbicides, and naturally
within our own bodies as an offshoot of regular metabolic
processes.
Free radicals
attack and damage cells altering normal cell activity. You
see it around you every day causing
metal to
rust and fruit to spoil. This is why we take anti-oxidants
like vitamins C, E, beta-carotene and selenium, to combat
the attack of free radicals.
Heredity plays
a role in high cholesterol. Your genes can influence your
LDL by affecting
how fast it is made and
removed from
your blood. There is one particular form of inherited
high cholesterol that will often lead to early heart disease.
It is called familial “hypercholesterolemia” and can
play
a role
in 1 of 500 people.
Weight is a factor
in determining your LDL. If you have a high LDL level and
are overweight,
losing those pounds
may
help
you to lower it. Additionally, losing weight also helps
to lower triglycerides and raise your HDL.
Age and
sex should be considered as well. Women, before menopause,
usually have total cholesterol levels that
are lower than
men. This changes as men and women age. Levels will
rise until reaching
age 60 to 65. For women, menopause can cause an increase
in LDL and a decrease in HDL. After the age of 50
women often have higher total cholesterol levels than men
of the same
age.
Alcohol plays
an odd role in cholesterol levels. It increases HDL but at
the same time it does not
lower
LDL. The medical
community does not know for certain whether alcohol
reduces the risk of heart disease. We know that
too much alcohol
can damage the liver and heart muscle, lead to
high blood pressure
and raise triglycerides. There are just too many
other risks to even consider the use of alcoholic
beverages
used as a
way to prevent heart disease just because it increased
the HDL.
Stress
and personality may contribute to heart disease. Associating a certain type
of personality
and heart
disease has been
suggested for many years. This goes back to the
“Type A” and “Type B”
personality study conducted in 1959.
Type A behavior
generally manifests in a chronic sense of time, urgency,
aggressiveness and striving
for achievement.
Type
A people will drive themselves to meet specific
deadlines which are most often self-imposed.
They have feelings
of being constantly under pressure and often multi-task to
the point
of doing two
or three things
at one
time. To say that Type A people are “driven”
is an understatement. They consider themselves
indispensable.
All of these
traits add up to a state of constant stress
Over
the long term, stress has shown to raise blood cholesterol
levels. The way it does
this is by
affecting habits.
An example is over indulging in fatty foods
as a way of consoling
themselves
when people are under stress. The saturated
fat and cholesterol in these foods contribute
to
high levels
of blood cholesterol.
We will explore dietary factors in a later
chapter.
Type B behavior
is characterized by just the opposite set of traits. Type
B people
are less
preoccupied
with achievement,
less rushed and generally more easygoing
people.
They don’t allow
themselves to be rushed nor have any particular pressure
regarding
deadlines.
They
are less
prone to angry
outbursts and seem to be better equipped
to making distinctions between work
and play.
Studies completed
over a period of eighteen months to two years with a
group of both
Type A and
Type B people,
indicated
that
Type A participants had a 31 percent
increased risk of developing heart
disease.
This was further
substantiated by the discovery of more deposits of
plaque
in the coronary
arteries of Type A
people. Type
A behavior also appears to show
an association with
other risk
factors like smoking, higher fat
levels, increased secretion of
adrenaline. All of which increases
the oxygen requirement
of the heart muscles and releasing
fatty acids from the body fat.
It
is important to note that there are not two different types
of
people. Each
person
is an
individual and
sorting them into
specific categories do not properly
identify them.
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