Cholesterol: What You Need to Know

As it's National Cholesterol Month, we're looking at why it's so important for your health to keep your cholesterol levels under control.

You can barely get through an ad break without a commercial for some kind of food that lowers your cholesterol, but why is keeping your cholesterol at a healthy level so important? In National Cholesterol Month, here’s our guide to what it is and the effects it can have on your health.

How does high cholesterol affect your health?

With all the warnings about cholesterol we’ve had over the last few years, it’s easy to overlook the fact that it’s an important material for keeping your body working properly. A type of blood fat, it plays a role in digesting fats and producing Vitamin D, among other vital functions. The problem is, that it can also clog up your arteries when it gets to unhealthy levels.

Furred-up, narrowed arteries (a condition known as atherosclerosis) make it harder for your heart to pump blood around the body and increase the chances of blood clots which can block the arteries entirely. This can lead to a number of serious and sometimes fatal health conditions, including:

• Strokes
• Heart failure
• Heart attacks
• Coronary artery disease
• Vascular dementia

Checking your cholesterol

While you might think high cholesterol is only a problem for people who are overweight, that’s not the case. Even people who are a normal weight can have increased levels, perhaps due to an unhealthy lifestyle, other health conditions or their family history. As it can be hard to tell whether you have high cholesterol, it’s a good idea to have a blood test to check your levels.

You’ve probably heard of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ cholesterol. A test will measure your levels of each. HDL (high-density lipoproteins) is the good variety. Your LDL (low-density lipoproteins) reading is the one where you want to keep the score to a minimum. Sometimes the test result will be broken down into separate readings, or you may just be given an overall score.

Check out the NHS cholesterol chart to check the guide as to what generally counts as a normal or high reading for each category. If you think you might need to check your cholesterol, your GP surgery can help.

Lowering your levels

If your test finds that you do have high cholesterol, there are ways that you can lower your levels. In some cases that might mean taking prescribed medications like statins, but there are also some lifestyle changes that can help.

A diet that’s high in saturated fats won’t do your cholesterol level any favours, so cutting down on high-fat dairy products and processed foods is a start. Try to avoid eating lots of:

• cheese and butter
• animal fats
• products containing palm oil
• cakes and biscuits

Not all fats are bad though. Unsaturated fats are actually beneficial in sensible amounts and are found in things like:

• oily fish
• olive oil
• nuts
• seeds

Increasing the amount of fibre in your diet by eating more wholegrains, pulses, fruit and vegetables can help lower cholesterol too. Adding more plant sterols to your daily intake can also inhibit the absorption of cholesterol into your bloodstream. You can get these from natural sources but they’re available in greater concentrations in the numerous cholesterol-lowering products like the special yogurts and spreads you see in the supermarket.

Even small dietary changes could make a difference. If you want some ideas to help you make a start, check out some of Heart UK’s tasty low-cholesterol recipes.

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