What You Need to Know About LDL LEVELS?What is the optimum LDL levels? Low LDL Prevents Serious Health Problems! How High LDL Cholesterol Levels May Affect Your Health.
If you are suffering from heart problems, the optimum levels should be below 100 mg/dL or 2.6 mmol/L. If you’re at very high risk of heart problems, your aim should be below 70 mg/dL or 1.8 mmol/L.
LDL or low density lipoprotein is a type of lipoprotein commonly known as “bad cholesterol”. Why it is called “bad cholesterol” is because a high level of LDL cholesterol is a marker for serious health problems including heart attacks and stroke.
Cholesterol as such cannot dissolve in your blood and it needs to be transported transportation is required to and from your cells by carriers known as lipoproteins. This job is done by your health friendly cholesterol called HDL or “good cholesterol”. LDL cholesterol on the other hand doesn’t take part in such transportation of cholesterol. This is why LDL levels are so important for your health.
The LDL or “bad cholesterol” rather than helping in transportation of cholesterol, start building up slowly on the inner walls of your blood vessels called arteries. It combines with other similar substances and start building a hard and thick plaque on the surface of arteries. Such buildup ultimately leads towards narrowing and hardening of arteries and turn your arteries less flexible for smooth blood flow.
This condition is known as atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis can lead to serious health problems like angina, heart attack, poor circulation, stroke, and even early death. This is why you need to have low LDL levels.
People who are obese or over-weight are more likely to have high LDL cholesterol. But even people who are not obese including thin people and children may get high LDL cholesterol.
Genetics is another important risk factor for people to have high LDL cholesterol levels even if no other risk factor like obesity is present. High LDL cholesterol runs in families and children who inherit this problem from their parents and so on.
Foods with saturated fats and trans fats are the main dietary risk factor for you to have high levels of bad cholesterol. If cholesterol is present in your food, it can also rise your cholesterol levels but not as much as saturated or trans fats. So even if you read a label like “Cholesterol Free”, saturated or trans fats may still be present in that food product.
Unhealthy life-style and lack of regular exercise is another important risk factor for people to have obesity and high levels of bad cholesterol. The good news is that high bad cholesterol levels is preventable and treatable condition and once you are diagnosed with high LDL levels, you should seek medical advice.
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