High Cholesterol

If you are like me, you’ve got some seriously high cholesterol. It can be a little scary when your doctor takes one look at your blood work lab results and gasps. I need to have a little chat with my doctor about keeping a good poker face. I think he’s just out of medical school, and is still working on his bedside manner, but that’s all beside the point. The point is, high cholesterol is a serious matter, and really increases your chances of developing heart disease and/or having a stroke.

So what is cholesterol anyway? And why is having high cholesterol so bad? Here comes the scientific explanation, so bear with me. Cholesterol is a chemical compound present in high amounts in animal cell membranes. It helps to keep the membranes of your cells ‘fluid’, which is important for reasons that are too complicated for the scope of this discussion.

Because it can slip into and out of cell membranes, it also acts as a sort of transport molecule. By attaching to proteins and other molecules that normally would be unable to pass through a cell membrane, cholesterol allows these compounds to enter the cell. Additionally, it is a vital component part to more complicated proteins and enzymes, including steroid hormones.

That all makes cholesterol sound pretty good, and it actually is. Without it, we would not be able to live. Unfortunately, cholesterol has one little nasty problem associated with it. It has a tendency to get stuck in blood vessels. When it gets stuck in blood vessels, other cholesterol molecules get stuck to the first ones, so on and so forth until the blood is completely blocked.

A blocked blood vessel in most parts of the body is not really a big deal, and happens all the time. However, a blocked vessel in a crucial part of the heart or brain is more serious and can lead to heart attacks and strokes, respectively. Having high cholesterol increases the chances of these events occurring.

So what can you do about high cholesterol? First of all, see a doctor. Many forms of high cholesterol can be reduced to safe levels just by committing to regular exercise and the right diet. Though it was long thought that high cholesterol was caused primarily by a poor diet, it is now known to have strong genetic components. More serious forms of high cholesterol may need to be treated with medication. Only your doctor can help you to determine if you should consider taking such a medication.