By: Jules Perkel
The time of year has rolled around yet again: your yearly (or what should be) visit to the family physician. Getting those test results back can be anxiety provoking, especially when your Doctor may say to you that your cholesterol is too high. You may wonder how that can be? After all, you are only in your mid 20’s. Maintaining healthy cholesterol has a lot to do with the whole person, rather than just eating healthy, just exercising or just being young.
I always thought cholesterol was complicated, but my father, Dr. Robert Perkel, family physician and medical professor at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital helped me understand the need-to-knows about cholesterol.
Cholesterol is a chemical in the body that is manufactured by the liver. It is a very important chemical, more like a steroid based hormone that helps the brain and central nervous system function properly. There are three different kinds of cholesterol that doctors look for in a test that reveals a person’s lipid panel. This panel consists of your total cholesterol, LDL (bad cholesterol), and HDL (good cholesterol). There is also a fourth component that the panel presents: triglycerides, which are similar and related to the three but slightly different (we can talk about those in an entire other article).
Understanding the good, bad and ugly of cholesterol
The goals for maintaining healthy cholesterol levels for an average risk individual (a fancy medical term for your average Jane or Joe) are set by an important body known as the National Cholesterol Education Program. The latest set of guidelines are called the Adult Treatment Panel and a quick synopsis suggests that a total cholesterol level less than 200 is ideal. A person’s LDL should be less than 130, and 130-160 calls for dietary and lifestyle changes. Even higher numbers in the LDL would warrant a full consideration of diet, medication and lifestyle changes. Your HDL levels are quite the opposite. The higher the better. Any level between 40-60 is good; any over 60 is ideal. Less than 40 is a warning for improvement.
Why should we bother to measure cholesterol? The single most important risk factor that cholesterol correlates to is the development of the #1 killer in the United States: Coronary Heart Disease. Cholesterol is a potentially fixable risk factor.
Some tips to maintaining healthy cholesterol
There is still hope if you already have high cholesterol
When a person has high cholesterol already, Doctors attempt to modify the diet of the patient for 3-6 months then retest to see if progress has been made. If no progress has been made then other factors of the patient are taken into consideration. By counting how many other factors like: age, high Blood Pressure, diabetes, obesity, sedentary lifestyle, type A behavior, cigarette smoke, are a part of the life, Doctor’s can determine how aggressive other treatments are necessary in lowering the person’s cholesterol.
If a patient hasn’t achieved through diet and lifestyle modification the cholesterol desired, then medicines like Lipitor, Crestor, Simvistatin, etc. may be prescribed. These medicines all work by targeting an enzyme in the liver that creates the cholesterol. These work by blocking the action of the enzyme, therefore going to source and blocking the synthesis - it is super safe and very effective.
“People who believe they want to get their cholesterol back to a healthy number in a natural way may be fooling themselves because we [medical professionals] don’t know what are in those [types of treatments],” said Dr. Perkel.
The bottom line is to get your cholesterol checked on a periodic bases because of the way Americans consume food. Get your regular check-ups and make sure to work with your doctor to achieve your lifestyle goals. If you achieve them then you ultimately reduce your risk of contracting the #1 killer in the United States.
Websites to check out:
AAFM - American Academy of Family Medicine
NCEP - National Cholesterol Education Program
I always thought cholesterol was complicated, but my father, Dr. Robert Perkel, family physician and medical professor at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital helped me understand the need-to-knows about cholesterol.
Cholesterol is a chemical in the body that is manufactured by the liver. It is a very important chemical, more like a steroid based hormone that helps the brain and central nervous system function properly. There are three different kinds of cholesterol that doctors look for in a test that reveals a person’s lipid panel. This panel consists of your total cholesterol, LDL (bad cholesterol), and HDL (good cholesterol). There is also a fourth component that the panel presents: triglycerides, which are similar and related to the three but slightly different (we can talk about those in an entire other article).
Understanding the good, bad and ugly of cholesterol
The goals for maintaining healthy cholesterol levels for an average risk individual (a fancy medical term for your average Jane or Joe) are set by an important body known as the National Cholesterol Education Program. The latest set of guidelines are called the Adult Treatment Panel and a quick synopsis suggests that a total cholesterol level less than 200 is ideal. A person’s LDL should be less than 130, and 130-160 calls for dietary and lifestyle changes. Even higher numbers in the LDL would warrant a full consideration of diet, medication and lifestyle changes. Your HDL levels are quite the opposite. The higher the better. Any level between 40-60 is good; any over 60 is ideal. Less than 40 is a warning for improvement.
Why should we bother to measure cholesterol? The single most important risk factor that cholesterol correlates to is the development of the #1 killer in the United States: Coronary Heart Disease. Cholesterol is a potentially fixable risk factor.
Some tips to maintaining healthy cholesterol
- Dieting in the form of eating low saturated fats decreases a person’s LDL.
- Dark meat chicken, butter, egg yolks, cheese, shell fish, bacon, pork, sausage, and certain red meats increase LDL.
- Exercise, aerobic especially increases your HDL.
- Eating Omega 3 fatty acids, fish oils and salmon, cold water fishes increases HDL.
There is still hope if you already have high cholesterol
When a person has high cholesterol already, Doctors attempt to modify the diet of the patient for 3-6 months then retest to see if progress has been made. If no progress has been made then other factors of the patient are taken into consideration. By counting how many other factors like: age, high Blood Pressure, diabetes, obesity, sedentary lifestyle, type A behavior, cigarette smoke, are a part of the life, Doctor’s can determine how aggressive other treatments are necessary in lowering the person’s cholesterol.
If a patient hasn’t achieved through diet and lifestyle modification the cholesterol desired, then medicines like Lipitor, Crestor, Simvistatin, etc. may be prescribed. These medicines all work by targeting an enzyme in the liver that creates the cholesterol. These work by blocking the action of the enzyme, therefore going to source and blocking the synthesis - it is super safe and very effective.
“People who believe they want to get their cholesterol back to a healthy number in a natural way may be fooling themselves because we [medical professionals] don’t know what are in those [types of treatments],” said Dr. Perkel.
The bottom line is to get your cholesterol checked on a periodic bases because of the way Americans consume food. Get your regular check-ups and make sure to work with your doctor to achieve your lifestyle goals. If you achieve them then you ultimately reduce your risk of contracting the #1 killer in the United States.
Websites to check out:
AAFM - American Academy of Family Medicine
NCEP - National Cholesterol Education Program
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The Bottom Line for Cholesterol
What every person at every age needs to know about an easy-to-manage problem
What every person at every age needs to know about an easy-to-manage problem