Controlling Cholesterol For Dummies

Carol Ann Rinzler, Martin W. Graf

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780470227596
• eBook ISBN: 9781118052242
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Diseases & Allergies

The latest ways to lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease Need to get your cholesterol in check? You'll find the latest information about cholesterol, including treatments, drug information, and dietary advice, in Controlling Cholesterol For Dummies, 2 nd Edition, an easy-to-understand guide to cholesterol control. You'll learn how to lower your numbers and maintain healthy cholesterol levels. You'll also find out how to eat and exercise properly, use vitamins and supplements, and quit unhealthy habits.

You'll find out cholesterol's positive functions and why too much can be a bad thing. You can also assess your cholesterol risk by taking your age, sex, ethnicity, and family history into consideration. Find out what you need to ask your doctor about stress tests, ECBT, and angiograms to check for plaque buildup. Design a cholesterol-crushing diet and understand which foods can help you lower your numbers. Find out how smoking, alcohol, exercise, excess weight, supplements, and prescription medications affect your cholesterol levels. Find out how to:

• Assess your cholesterol risk
• Understand the benefits and risks associated with cholesterol
• Design and adhere to a cholesterol-lowering diet
• Avoid dangerous drugs
• Reduce your risk of heart attack
• Choose fats and fibers correctly
• Check for plaque buildup

Complete with lists of ten important cholesterol websites, ten nutrition websites, ten cholesterol myths, ten landmarks in cholesterol history, ten foods that raise your cholesterol, and ten foods that lower your cholesterol, Controlling Cholesterol For Dummies, 2 nd Edition will help keep your cholesterol levels under control for good!

Part I

Getting Up Close and Personal with Cholesterol

In this part . . .

**IN a DROPCAP**

To do the best job of controlling your cholesterol, you need to have a handle on the basics — info such as what cholesterol is, where it comes from, what it does, and why some varieties are more threatening than others. And being a Serious Seeker of Knowledge, you probably want to be able to perform a realistic evaluation of your own risk of developing cholesterol-related problems. The info you need is right here in this part. Go for it.

Chapter 1

Mapping the Heart Land

In This Chapter

Picturing your heart

Quantifying heart disease and tracking the stats on heart attacks

Setting a sensible strategy to cut your personal risk

Heart disease is America’s number one health killer; it’s ahead of every type of cancer combined and every infectious and degenerative disease. Heart attack is the most common form of heart disease, and one significant risk factor for heart attack is high cholesterol or, more specifically, a high level of certain kinds of low-density lipoproteins (LDLs) — the “bad” fat and protein particles that ferry cholesterol into your arteries.

If you already know all this introductory stuff, feel free to skip Chapter 1 and head right into Chapter 2 where I describe cholesterol’s dual nature (yes, cholesterol has two sides).

But, then again, this chapter does lay out a statistical picture of heart disease and heart attack and explain the role cholesterol plays in placing you at risk. In fact, come to think of it, this chapter is a darn good intro to Controlling Cholesterol For Dummies, 2nd Edition.

No surprise there!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Meet Your Heart

Your heart is a pretty spectacular organ — a four-chambered, hollow muscle right smack in the middle of your chest. The heart’s job is to pump the blood that carries life-giving oxygen and other nutrients to every body tissue. To show how this works, the clever For Dummies artists have drawn a cross section of your heart in Figure 1-1 tracing the path of blood flowing in and out and in and out and in . . . you get the idea.

Figure 1-1: The heart: Looks nothing like what you drew in 4th grade, does it?

Every second of every minute of every hour of every day, blood flows out from your heart to carry oxygen and other nutrients to every tissue and organ in your body, and then comes back to your heart to pick up more oxygen and nutrients. In other words, blood circulates, which is why your heart and the vessels through which blood travels are called the circulatory system.

The best way to explain this process is to begin at the beginning, the point at which blood flows back from your body, into your heart:

1. The blood enters your heart from the superior vena cava, a large vein that opens into the right atrium, the first chamber of your heart.

Yes, the vena cava and the right atrium are on the left side of the picture above. In this picture, you’re looking at the front of the heart as it sits in the chest of the person to whom it belongs. If he were to turn around so that you were looking at him from the back, the vena cava and the right atrium would be in the correct position, on the right side of his body. Got it? Good. Onward.

Naming the blood vessels

Blood vessels are grouped according to the job they perform in your body, which means they’re grouped in terms of whether they carry blood to your heart or away from your heart. This list explains how the groupings work:

Veins: Blood vessels that carry blood toward your heart. The word vein comes from vena, the Latin word for hollow.

Venules: Small veins.

Capillaries: Teensy, little veins that connect arteries to veins right under the skin. When blood flows into your capillaries, the red liquid under the skin gives you a rosy glow — a blush.

Arteries: Blood vessels that carry blood away from your heart. The word artery comes from arteria, the Latin word for windpipe.

Arterioles: Very small arteries.

I have no idea why the person who named the blood vessels picked a word that means hollow for veins and a word that means windpipe for arteries. If it were up to me, I would’ve used a word that means “bring to” for veins, and a word that means “go away from” for arteries.

In fact, the words afferent (from the Latin ad = toward and ferro = carry) and efferent (ferro plus the Latin ex = away) are used to describe, respectively, nerves that carry impulses to or away from the central nervous system. Maybe whoever named the blood vessels picked veins and arteries because afferent and efferent were already taken. Works for me.

2. From the right atrium, blood spills down through a one-way “trapdoor” called the tricuspid valve and into the right ventricle.

3. When the right ventricle contracts (squeezes together), the blood is sent out of your heart through the pulmonary artery and into your lungs where it picks up a plentiful supply of oxygen...

Table of contents

• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I : Getting Up Close and Personal with Cholesterol
• Chapter 1: Mapping the Heart Land
• Chapter 2: Comparing Cholesterol’s Risks and Benefits
• Chapter 3: Rating Your Cholesterol-Related Risk
• Part II : Eating Your Way to Lower Cholesterol
• Chapter 4: Writing Rules for a Cholesterol-Lowering Diet
• Chapter 5: Building a Cholesterol-Lowering Diet
• Chapter 6: Pinning Down the “How-To’s” for a Cholesterol-Lowering Diet
• Part III : Leading a Cholesterol-Lowering Lifestyle
• Chapter 7: Weighing Weight’s Weight on Cholesterol
• Chapter 8: Exercising Options to Control Your Cholesterol
• Chapter 9: Weeding Out Tobacco’s Role in High Cholesterol
• Chapter 10: The Grape, the Grains, and Your Cholesterol
• Part IV : Cutting Cholesterol with Nutrients and Medicine
• Chapter 11: Vitamins, Minerals, and Other Good Stuff
• Chapter 12: Prescribing Lower Cholesterol
• Chapter 13: Identifying Meds That Raise Cholesterol
• Chapter 14: Mouth-Watering Morsels for Special Occasions
• Part V: The Part of Tens
• Chapter 15: Ten Clicks to Reliable Cholesterol Information
• Chapter 16: Ten Nutrition Web Sites
• Chapter 17: Ten Cholesterol Myths
• Chapter 18: Ten (Okay, Eleven) “Eureka!” Cholesterol Moments
• Appendix: Calories and Other Nutrients in Food
• : Further Reading