Daily Health Tips

Archive for the ‘High Cholesterol’ Category

Whether low or high values of your >LDL cholesterol levels are determined by many factors, including:

* Diet,
* Body weight,
* The level of physical activity,
* Age (cholesterol increases with age)
* Sex (men have cholesterol levels higher),
* Alcohol consumption,
* Heredity.

The consumption of foods high in saturated fat and dietary cholesterol is another cause of elevated cholesterol. Other factors can also increase your cholesterol, including lack of physical activity and overweight. In some cases, high cholesterol is a genetic disorder hereditary designated familial hypercholesterolemia. This disorder makes you more liable to contract heart disease when you’re still very young.

Medical conditions such as diabetes, hypothyroidism, liver disease and kidney disease can cause elevated cholesterol.

What are the symptoms of blood cholesterol?

You can not feel if you have high cholesterol levels in the same way you can do with a headache, but a high level combined with other risk factors can lead to atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease symptoms.

Atherosclerosis is the buildup of cholesterol and fat (fatty deposits or plaques) in arterial walls, which the arteries narrow and harden, becoming difficult elasticity disappears then the blood flow through them.

These fatty plaques can rupture, causing blood to clot around the rupture, and if blood can not flow to part of the body, the tissue dies (necrosis).

The following are the symptoms of cardiovascular disease since they depend on the degree of narrowing and the probability of reaching the plaque rupture (vulnerability) of the organ supplied by the affected arteries.

• If the arteries carry a limited supply to the lower extremities, this can cause leg pain when walking or running (intermittent claudication). If a clot blocks the main blood vessels of lower extremity peripheral can suddenly get to the death of tissue reaching the point that requires amputation.
• In the brain, a blood clot (thrombus) may block an artery or a smaller blood vessel and may rupture, causing local haemorrhage (bleeding), or will lead to a stroke.
• In the heart, narrowed coronary arteries cause angina and ruptured plaques cause blood clots reach that can lead to a heart attack.
• If the carotid arteries in the neck is narrow, clots may form and go to float in the brain. This can result in stroke or repeated ‘mini-strokes “(transient ischemic attacks or TIAs).

It is common for most affected by the disease have atherosclerosis in the arteries, including:

• The aorta, the main artery in the chest and abdomen
• The renal arteries (kidneys),
• Mesenteric vessels (intestinal).