Total cholesterol level can be determined through a simple blood test, and in fact, an at-home test kit is available and can be just as accurate as the standard tests procured in a doctor’s office. So how do you know if youre at risk for heart disease or blood clots from cholesterol? The first step is to know your number. In other words, have your cholesterol level checked.

240 mgdL and over People with cholesterol levels over 240mgdL are at increased risk for heart attack and stroke. If your cholesterol level is 240 mgdL or greater, consult your doctor and follow hisher advice on lowering that level.

200239 mgdL Consult your doctor. Your doctor will be best equipped to interpret the results and test further for LDL andHDL levels.

Less than 200 mgdL This is where your cholesterol level should be. Even so, to ensure that you have the right balance more HDL than LDL cholesterol you should follow the Guidelines for Healthy Living.

Although these levels are important guidelines, they do not give the whole picture they are really just rough guidelines. The LDL cholesterol level is a more important indicator of overall cardiovascular health, but having your cholesterol level checked will not necessarily give you your LDL cholesterol number.

LDL Levels

Less then 130 is optimal;
130-159 is borderline, increasing your risk for heart disease;
160 or greater puts you at greater risk for heart disease.

HDL Levels

Less then 40 increases your risk for heart disease;
60 or greater decreases your risk.

Traditional cholesterol testing is a good indicator for assessing heart disease and stroke risk; however, there are many variables that can not be controlled in this traditional testing, such as genes, race, age and past medical history. A person may appear heart healthy, at a good weight, fit, and eating a balanced diet, and still have unacceptable cholesterol levels. On the other hand, another person may have acceptable cholesterol levels even acceptable HDL cholesterol levels and still be at risk for heart disease. There is still much research to be done on cholesterol and our bodies manufacture and control of cholesterol levels.

Fortunately, there is another test available, rather than the traditional cholesterol testing, which provides a more in-depth study of cholesterol levels. This is the VAP, or Verticle Auto Profile. This test not only indicates the HDL and LDL cholesterol levels, but also provides an analysis of the many subclasses of cholesterol and it offers a more comprehensive indication of who may be at an increased risk of heart disease. In fact, statistics show that the VAP has a 90 detection rate for persons at risk for heart disease, whereas traditional cholesterol testing may miss up to 60 of the patients at risk! Please see the VAP website for more information on the importance of this test, especially for anyone at risk for heart disease, and for information on taking the VAP.

Cholesterol is a fat-like substances made by you body. Although the cells of your body need some cholesterol, excess can build up in your blood vessels. When this happens it can cause your blood vessels to narrow which in turn reduces blood flow to your heart.

There is ‘good’ cholesterol HDL and there is LDL which is “bad” cholesterol. HDL helps take cholesterol out of your arteries so that it can be removed from your body. LDL can build up in the walls of your arteries which can reduce blood flow. High levels of LDL may cause heart disease.

Triglycerides TGs is a type of fat found in your blood and stored in you body as fat. High levels of TGs can also increase your risk of heart disease.

Who is more likely to have high cholesterol? Any adult 20 or older can have high cholesterol; usually there are no symptoms. If some of your family members have it, you may also. If that is the case, tell your doctor so you can get a plan to lower it; one that will work for you. You should also have your triglycerides checked. With your cholesterol and triglycerides both high, it puts you at a greater risk of heart disease and stroke. Diet, exercise, and medicine can help to lower them.

You can take a simple blood test to see if your cholesterol is high and also to find out your triglycerides level. Anyone over the age of 20 should have their cholesterol checked at least once every 5 years.

To keep your cholesterol at a healthy level and to lower your risk of heart attack and stroke you should

Eat a healthy diet.

Exercise.

Have your cholesterol checked.

Take your medicine if your doctor has prescribed it.

Here are some more facts you need to know. More than half of American adults have a cholesterol level that should be treated. Any adult can have high cholesterol. One in 5 American adults has a cholesterol number over 240. Changing your diet and exercising can help to lower both your cholesterol and triglycerides.

Factors leading to and Increase in Cholesterol

Poor eating habits
Diet that is high in saturated fat tends to elevate cholesterol. Saturated fats are found mostly in foods that come from animals. Saturated fat raises you LDL bad cholesterol level more that anything else in the diet. Eating too much saturated fat is the main reason for high levels of cholesterol and high rate of heart attacks.

Smoking
Cigarette smoking lowers HDL good cholesterol levels and is one of the six major risk factors of heart disease. It also increases the tendency for blood to clot. Once a person quits smoking, HDL cholesterol levels rises within weeks or months to levels that are equal to their nonsmoking peers.

Excess Weight
Excess weight tends to increase your LDL bad cholesterol level. If you are over weight and have high LDL-cholesterol level, losing weight may help you lower it.

Heredity
Heredity can make certain individuals more prone to high cholesterol. Genes play a role in influencing you LDL-cholesterol level. Your genes influence how high you LDL bad cholesterol is by affecting how fast LDL is made and removed from the blood.

Stress
Stress over the long term has been shown in several studies to raise blood cholesterol levels. One way that stress may do this is by affecting your habits. For example, when some people are under stress, they console themselves by eating fatty foods.

Alcohol consumption
Alcohol intake increases HDL good cholesterol but does not lower LDL bad cholesterol. But drinking too much alcohol can damage the liver and heart muscle, lead to high blood pressure, and raise triglycerides. Because of the risks, the benefit isnt great enough to recommend drinking alcohol if you dont do so already.

Factors which Lower Cholesterol in the Body

Good Eating Habits
Eating healthy is a vital part of lowering you cholesterol. Increasing fiber intake by as little as 3 grams per day can help lower cholesterol. Good sources include oatmeal, soy, legumes, some vegetables, and beans. A healthy diet includes minimal saturated fat. However, monounsaturated fats olive oils have a positive effect on cholesterol. Alcohol should also be kept to a minimum.

Exercise
Along with diet, exercising is an important part of achieving a healthy cholesterol level. Being physically active can help lower you cholesterol level, whether it involves everyday activities like cleaning or gardening or structured exercise program. Exercise sets off a series of enzymatic reactions in the body that increases HDLs and lowers triglycerides. This will ultimately lower LDLs bad and total cholesterol.

Weight Loss
This is actually the most significant independent contributor to cholesterol reduction. While exercise and proper diet contribute to cholesterol reduction. In most cases weight loss must occur to see an improvement. The good news is that only a five percent weight loss can alter cholesterol significantly.

Besides diet, other causes of high cholesterol are lifestyle, gender and the heritage of the individual.

For some, even maintaining cholesterol at the right levels and being fit and thin will still not prevent the development of high levels of bad cholesterol. Due to heart risk factors besides diet, some people require a very aggressive approach which includes cholesterol lowing medication.

Lifestyle issues and high cholesterol

When we opt for convenience in eating over nutrition, we are setting ourselves up for problems. Eating fast foods and convenience foods results in eating too many fats and salts, which can raise our bad cholesterol levels. In addition, a more sedentary lifestyle also contributes to unhealthy levels of cholesterol. If you want to see a graphic representation of this, consider renting the documentary movie Supersize Me. This documentary details the attempts of one man to live on fast foods and little exercise alone. The results on his cholesterol and body health in just 30 days are truly frightening.

A visit to a nutritionist or dietician can help us all better understand eating for the right reasons and for optimal health. It is never too late to start on this path.

Regular exercise will effectively lower cholesterol and will maintain your body strength to function best. Just 20 minutes of aerobic exercise, including walking, each day will lower cholesterol. Exercise does not have to be a large time or money commitment. Simple activities that get you moving and that you enjoy enough to repeat are almost always adequate.

Diet

An important consideration in eating is choosing lower fat.

Buy cooking oils that are unsaturated. Use low fat cooking sprays to replace heavy oils whenever possible. Reduce your overall use of oils even further by using cooking techniques that require little or no oil.

Age and Gender

Cholesterol levels increase with age. Women generally have a lower level than men from age 50 to 55. Once a woman starts menopause, the cholesterol level starts to increase.

While there is not much that you can do about your age, you can make sure that age does not threaten your heart health by sticking to a healthy lifestyle and diet and by getting your cholesterol levels monitored.

Heritage

Genetics play a key role in a person’s health and this includes the amount of cholesterol you might have.

Find out if your family battles with high levels of cholesterol and then bring this to your doctors attention right away. If you have a family history of heart disease and high cholesterol levels, work harder and start earlier in adopting a healthy lifestyle and eating plan.

Do you have high cholesterol and need to lower it? That is no surprise considering how many people have high cholesterol these days. To help lower your cholesterol, here are 10 tips you can get started with today.

As with anything health related, diet and exercise are the two crucial components. What you eat is critical to lowering your cholesterol levels, so that is what is included here.

One thing you should know is the difference between LDL and HDL cholesterol. Simply think of HDL as “healthy” and LDL as “lousy.” HDL can actually help carry cholesterol out of your blood vessels while LDL allows it to deposit inside your artery walls.

The good news is that you can change your cholesterol for the better. Here is how to do just that

1. Have a nice sandwich on whole wheat bread or a pita with some lean turkey and lots of fresh veggies. Skip the hot dogs, bologna, and salami, and hold the Mayo. All of those are highly processed and filled with fat and cholesterol.

2. Fish, like salmon, is good. Look for wild red salmon varieties, which are very high in Omega-3 fatty acids good fat. Also, flax seed is a good source of Omega-3s.

3. Avoid Trans fats! Not only do they raise the lousy LDL cholesterol, they can also lower your HDL levels! Stay away from foods like margarine, shortening, and processed foods containing partially hydrogenated soybean oil.

4. Go ahead, go nuts! Look for walnuts mainly but also try almonds, macadamia nuts, cashews, and pecans. Nuts are high in fat, but it’s the good kind. Also, use natural peanut butter instead of the normal kind which contains unhealthy Trans fats.

5. Limit desserts and try to eat only the healthier ones like angel food cake, graham crackers, Jell-O, and fat-free frozen yogurt.

6. Eat foods that are high in fiber. Examples include whole wheat bread, oatmeal, fruits, vegetables, beans, and some cereals. Look for the boxes that say “may help lower cholesterol.”

7. Use the grill. If you’re going to have steak or burgers, grill them at home and use lean meat. This practice avoids the grease, is fun, and the meat tastes great.

8. Find a new salad dressing. Most of them are full of Trans fats and cholesterol. Olive oil is good, and maybe add vinegar or lemon juice. Also, skip the bacon bits, croutons, and egg yolks.

9. Go overboard on fruits and vegetables. They contain no cholesterol and they have lots of nutrients like antioxidants.

Here are some examples green peas, broccoli, cauliflower, apples, oranges, mangos, papaya, pineapple, tomato, garlic, onions, spinach, water chestnuts, bananas, apricots, blueberries, and kiwi.

10. Avoid fast food like french fries and anything else from the deep fryer. Those foods will raise your cholesterol like crazy, so stay away from the burger joints if you can.

11. Bonus tip Use spices like pepper and oregano to add flavor to your dishes. They are a healthy alternative to other toppings like Mayo.

That was easy, wasn’t it? Just make some of these changes and get plenty of exercise like walking, jogging, swimming, or playing basketball. You will have lower cholesterol in no time!

While there’s plenty of medical advice that indicates the statin family of drugs are highly effective in lowering your levels of cholesterol, there are many people who are seeking alternative non-medical solutions to lowering high cholesterol. These people include the not-so-old who wish to make lifestyle changes now rather than face 30 or more years on medications. Why take the chance of suffering unacceptable side-effects from statin medications, such as erectile dysfunction in males and abdominal pain and muscle soreness in both sexes? Also, the long-term use of these drugs could lead to as yet unknown problems. So, eat a healthy diet low in saturated fats and combine this with the following natural health tips.

Natural Health Tip No 1 Regular Exercise. Start a program of regular exercise that will lead to achieving a healthy body weight. This means exercising three or four times a week to a level where your heart rate is raised to an acceptable rate for your age. Walking, swimming and cycling are all good activities that don’t place unnecessary strain on your body. Be sure to warm up with at least five minutes of muscle-stretching exercises beforehand. Raised oxygen levels also help your body organs maintain their vitality and firms and tones your muscles.

Natural Health Tip No 2 Plan Your Menus. Think about the healthy foods you like and plan your meals a week in advance to coincide with food shopping day. This saves you having to make compromises to your diet that involve the wrong foods. It also means you’ll have plenty of low fat products on hand that may be hard to find at the corner store.

Natural Health Tip No 3 Smart Cooking Techniques. Avoid bad cooking techniques such as deep-frying and try to prepare your foods by simmering, dry baking, steaming or using Asian stir-fry techniques. Even microwaving can allow foods to cook in their natural juices and retain their nutrients. And be sure to eat lots of raw foods, especially fruit and vegetables.

Natural Health Tip No 4 Take Your Supplements. Supplements such as Omega-3, inositol hexaniacinate, pantethine, and guggulipid can be effective in lowering cholesterol. Supplements for lowering cholesterol should be used as a part of an overall plan that includes diet and lifestyle changes.

Natural Health Tip No 5 Clean Out Your System. Plan an occasional system cleanout day where you consume only fruit and vegetables. The high water content of fruit and vegetables facilitates the spread of their valuable nutrients through your body and helps flush out the wastes that have built up from eating the wrong foods.

Natural Health Tip No 6 Relax. Stress and ill health go hand-in-hand. While you can’t and shouldn’t eliminate stress, you can learn to control it by meditation and relaxation techniques and by regular exercise. If you are currently on prescription drugs, don’t stop them without consulting your doctor. But follow these natural health tips and you should be able to lower your cholesterol. In any case, you will certainly be much fitter and healthier.