Heart Disease: Heart Disease Risk Factors

The most important information you need to improve your health

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• Publisher: Adams Media
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781440565748
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Diseases & Allergies

Looking for information on the risk factors for heart disease? The Everything® Healthy Living Series is here to help. These concise, thoughtful guides offer the expert advice and the latest medical information on the risk factors of this life-threatening condition.Inside you'll find expert advice and helpful tips on lowering your risk for heart disease. As you deal with heart disease, the more you know about the risk factors, the better you will be able to prevent the condition.

Cholesterol

You don’t need to be a scientist to understand what cholesterol is and how to effectively manage your levels for better health. You just need to care about your health. Cholesterol is an essential part of this life process — it keeps you going and can stop you dead in your tracks. The better you understand cholesterol, the better you can choose which of these results will occur.

What Is Cholesterol?

Cholesterol is a necessary and natural part of each and every cell in the human body and in the bodies of other animals. Cholesterol helps maintain the structure of the walls of cells and works to keep the brain healthy. The liver uses cholesterol as raw material to create important hormones and manufacture digestive enzymes. Cholesterol is integral to thinking and sexual activity as well as innumerable other bodily functions.

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Fact

Most gallstones formed in the gallbladder are composed primarily of cholesterol. The liver responds to the presence of dietary fat by producing cholesterol to synthesize bile to digest the fats. If you eat too much fat, the liver may overproduce cholesterol, leading to the formation of gallstones.

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A healthy liver makes cholesterol, a waxy lipid or fatlike substance. In addition, you also acquire cholesterol from the food you eat. The big picture, however, is not quite so simple; many other factors influence your cholesterol levels. Even if you are a vegetarian and don’t eat foods that contain cholesterol, you will still have plenty of cholesterol in your body. Depending on the type of cholesterol and how much of each type, this can be a good or a bad thing.

Factors Affecting Cholesterol

Total cholesterol is the sum total of all the cholesterol in your bloodstream at a given time. There are different types of cholesterol, such as high-density lipoproteins (HDLs) and low-density lipoproteins (LDLs), which make up the total amount. Density refers to the weight of the lipoprotein. If cholesterol is HDL, that means it is very compact; if it is LDL, that means it is less compact and more loose. In general, HDL is good cholesterol and LDL is bad cholesterol.

Several factors affect the total cholesterol levels in your bloodstream. These factors include the following:

• What you eat: Foods that come from animals, such as meats and eggs, contain cholesterol that you absorb as well as saturated fats, which can convert into cholesterol in your body. Trans fats, contained in processed foods, are also converted into cholesterol.
• Whether you are overweight: Generally, the more fat you have the more cholesterol you have. Therefore, weight loss can often lead to cholesterol loss.
• Whether you smoke: Smoking both raises your cholesterol and makes the cholesterol you have more harmful.
• Whether you consume alcohol: For years, scientists have noticed that moderate amounts of alcohol consumption can actually help your cholesterol levels. This comes with caution, as alcohol can worsen many other aspects of your health.
• Whether you are inactive or active regularly: People who are physically active on a regular basis not only have better levels of cholesterol, they have more of the type that helps the body.
• Whether you effectively manage stress in your life: Research studies show that mental and emotional stress can raise your cholesterol and make the cholesterol you have more harmful to the body.
• Your genes: Your genes influence all your traits, including your cholesterol. If your parents had high cholesterol, you are more likely to have high cholesterol. In fact, there are certain common genetic disorders that will give you extremely high cholesterol, which can be incredibly harmful.
• Your gender: Before menopause, women have a natural advantage over men, as female hormones help maintain better cholesterol levels.
• Age: With time, cholesterol levels tend to worsen, causing cumulative harm, which after years can become life threatening.
• What type of medications you take: For certain individuals, medications can help effectively manage cholesterol levels, while other medications can actually make cholesterol worse.

You may not be able to change your age, gender, or genes, but to improve your cholesterol levels, you can certainly change how you eat, whether you smoke, and how much you exercise.

A Complicated Puzzle

Your total cholesterol levels do not paint a complete picture of the health of your arteries. Because not all cholesterol is bad, you need to find out what type of cholesterol you have. Remember that cholesterol is essential to the health of every cell in your body and to the production of your hormones. Good cholesterol, or HDL, actually helps the body function well. To fully understand the health of your arteries and what is flowing in your bloodstream, you also need to find out about the levels of other blood fats, known as triglycerides.

Half the people whose total cholesterol levels come within the desirable levels have heart disease, so simply achieving this target does not guarantee you are not at risk for heart disease. To truly evaluate your risk, you need to take into account all of the risk factors that apply to you. Pay particular attention if you have a family history of heart disease. Regardless of cholesterol levels, it is a good idea for everyone to observe healthy lifestyle habits, not only to lengthen your life but also to increase the quality of those additional years. Anyone can improve his health and reduce the risk of serious disease by improving his cholesterol.

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Fact

Lipid is the chemical family name for fat. Its root is the Greek word lipos, meaning “fat.” A blood lipid is a fat that circulates in the bloodstream. Cholesterol and triglycerides are both classified as blood lipids. A lipoprotein is a combination of fat surrounded and protected by protein to enable the fat to circulate within your mostly water-filled blood.

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Separating the Good from the Bad

The major players in the cholesterol picture are the liver and the blood fats. To help the body function, the liver takes cholesterol and fat in the blood to make new cholesterol. The liver manufactures both good and bad cholesterol, manages their release into the bloodstream, and collects cholesterol back from the bloodstream. The body uses cholesterol and fat to build cell membranes, create essential hormones, and form digestive enzymes.

Lipoproteins

Fat and cholesterol need to be transported throughout the body. However, fat and cholesterol are oily and blood is watery; oil and water do not mix. This makes fat and cholesterol difficult to transport on their own. The liver resolves this transport issue by combining and coating the cholesterol with substances that are fat on one side, touching the fat and cholesterol, and protein on the other side, touching watery blood. These are called lipoproteins or combinations of fat and protein. The lipoprotein coating enables fat and cholesterol to travel in the bloodstream by shielding water-fearing fat with water-loving protein. Here are the various types of lipoproteins:

• High-density lipoprotein (HDL), or “Good” cholesterol
• Low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or “Bad” cholesterol
• Very low-density lipoprotein(VLDL)
• Small, dense, low-density lipoprotein (SDLDL)
• Apolipoprotein (a) plus low-density lipoprotein [Lp(a)], or “Ugly” cholesterol

The Liver: Cholesterol Manufacturing Plant

Imagine a pickup and delivery service to and from the liver, which is the cholesterol manufacturing plant. Imagine that the lipoproteins are like delivery trucks that carry packages of cholesterol in the bloodstream. The function of the LDL delivery trucks is to package cholesterol and transport it out through the bloodstream to your various organs. Contrastingly, the function of the HDL delivery trucks is to pick up excess cholesterol packages from the bloodstream and return them to the liver for repackaging, as needed.

In a healthy body, this efficient manufacturing, pickup, and delivery system maintains perfect balance. The LDLs...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Heart Disease
• Blood Pressure
• Cholesterol
• Diabetes
• Smoking
• Also Available
• Copyright Page