Featured Health Articles –By Paul A Philips
The Real Concerns about Your Cholesterol
When considering this important health subject the first thing is to distinguish the different implications between dietary and blood cholesterol. The blanket assumption that high cholesterol means a heart attack is on its way is false.
Dietary cholesterol doesn't make any difference. High dietary cholesterol intake means your body will simply make less of this substance. So don't let anybody give you the fear factor when it comes to eating those high cholesterol foods. In fact they may be quite rich in nutrients, giving a number of health benefits.
Children require cholesterol in their diets as part of their developing needs for a growing body. For examples, they require this substance to develop their digestive and nervous systems...
On the subject of blood cholesterol, once again more unnecessary fear mongering is given out. Take the case of women. Studies have found that blood cholesterol levels do not indicate that they are at risk from heart disease. The same goes with men aged 70 years plus, no matter how high their levels are.
For men under this age with blood cholesterol levels of 300mg/dL or over there is a slightly higher risk. However, the risk is not due to this substance. The heart disease problem is affected in a different way. The only thing that can be said for sure about this situation is that over 300mg/dL levels are useful markers.
Few people realize that high cholesterol can be a sign of thyroid mal-function. This is practically ignored by big pharma who are more interested in pushing their cholesterol lowering statin drugs on patients.
My advice here to patients in this situation would be to get their thyroid levels checked out before accepting the statin drugs. Remember, not only might the statins be ineffective but they also have potentially damaging side-effects. This could lead to having to take further drugs to deal with the side-effects.
Here's something you don't hear that much about. It's the fact that low blood cholesterol can be far more dangerous than a high one. Studies have linked this circumstance with cancer, strokes, suicides and other diseases, producing higher mortality rates. What confounds the problem is that it's hard to increase your cholesterol level if significantly low (≤150 mg/dL).
In this case the solution is to get a thorough health check. For example, one patient found out that their cholesterol level was low due to hepatitis (liver disease). However, when this was dealt with the patient's cholesterol increased to a normal level.
-It is hoped that the reader will get some insights from this, which is only part of a bigger picture when considering cholesterol levels. It should also be remembered that this is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for the trusted advice of a health professional.