High Cholesterol Levels A Warning Sign.

Blood cholesterol levels are used as an indicator of the health of your heart and arteries.
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High cholesterol shows that your arteries might have become narrowed by cholesterol deposits, restricting blood flow. Over time these deposits can calcify and harden, restricting blood flow even further.

When the blood supply to your heart is reduced, it can cause chest pain and perhaps heart attack.

Doctors measure the amount of cholesterol in your blood either in milligrams per decilitre (mg/dl) or in millimoles per litre (mmol/l).

(A decilitre is a tenth of a litre, a ‘mole’ is a measure used in chemistry, a certain number of molecules.)

A high level is considered to be over about 210 mg/dl or 5.4 mmol/l.

It used to be thought that the lower your cholesterol level the better, but you need some cholesterol – it’s essential for the production of various hormones, vitamin D and bile.

A study in Japan showed that low levels of cholesterol increase the risk of stroke; a Finnish study linked low cholesterol with higher rates of depression and suicide.

There are actually different types of cholesterol. HDL (high density lipoprotein) is the bad cholesterol. This is the type that forms the plaque on artery walls. LDL, (low density lipoprotein) is the good cholesterol. LDL seems to help reduce the amount of HDL in your blood.

For good health you need to have enough of the good cholesterol, not too much of the bad.

Ideally you should have between 190 and 210 mg/dl, or 4.9 and 5.4 mmol/l of cholesterol in your blood. At least a third of this should be good, LDL cholesterol.

There are foods that help to lower levels of bad cholesterol.

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