High Cholesterol and High LDL levels

cc9

:eek: Hi all,

Recently i had a medical for work and the blood test results showed that i had slightly high LDL and Cholesterol levels. I think that i have a fairly ok diet, but i am prone to get the odd treat or 5. While i know that a mere simple medical is not a true reflection of the levels of both(10 hour fast is required for accurate reading) seeing something on paper actually has made me really aware of what i eat. basically i am looking for some suggestions on what to eat diet etc... the only problem being that i like very few vegetables if any.... i have tried to eat them numerous times but it has made me fairly sick trying to eat them.... i like a lot of fruit and i am wondering if that could replace the lack of veg in my diet or maybe cod liver oil tablets etc...

any suggestions would be greatly welcome and appreciated

cheers

DrIndy

The interesting thing about cholesterol is the breakdown of the following:

Total Cholesterol
HDL Cholesterol
LDL Cholesterol

If total cholesterol is high then you are at an increased risk of heart disease as well as stroke and disease affecting the blood vessels to your legs, this has to also be taken into context of other risk factors like smoking, close family history (heart attack under 60 years of age is significant), Diabetes, high blood pressure and more factors such as body fat makeup (central obesity around your abdomen is a risk factor).

HDL cholesterol is GOOD cholesterol, HDL mops up cholesterol from the blood stream and REDUCES free cholesterol which can accumulate and cause plaques that cause the above diseases.

LDL cholesterol is BAD cholesterol and this carrier protein is what deposits cholesterol around the body

In addition to this there is also Triglycerides (TG). High TG is also a risk factor for heart disease but tends to be more family inherited and clearer cut.

Treatment of high cholesterol and high triglycerides is also different with different drugs.

Hence high HDL is in fact PROTECTIVE of your heart and thus high total cholesterol in this context is not neccesarily a bad test result, it depends on the ratio of the LDL cholesterol in addition to it.

Talk to your doctor about the actual values and the significance for full details. I can't comment further on the values (even if you post them! - See charter).

There are many links on Google on how to reduce cholesterol, but heart disease is a complex, multifactorial disease and changing the other risk factors is crucial in reducing risk of the disease, rather than focussing on the cholesterol.

sudzs

Take Vit B3.

Eat oats!