By: Dave Warner
Your weight, your exercise habits, whether you smoke, and what you eat can all have an impact on your cholesterol levels.
The good news is that you can control those things, and decide to follow a healthy lifestyle.
Other cholesterol issues though, may be out of your control. You should, nonetheless, be aware of them as risk factors for cholesterol issues and the heart disease they can bring about.
Those factors include your age, your gender and your genetics.
Here’s the story on each of them:
- The sexes are not created equally when it comes to heart disease. Estrogen tends to protect women from high cholesterol levels until they reach menopause. Because of that, the risk for heart disease in men increases after about the age of 45, while in women the risk increases after 55. By the time people of either sex have reached their 70s, most have some plaque buildup in their arteries. The plaque is caused by all that cholesterol in your blood. Although the level of cholesterol tends to get higher as you get older, you should have your cholesterol levels measured from age 20, about every 5 years. It is possible that even children, especially those who are overweight, can have high cholesterol levels.
- Even though women tend to be older when they are at risk for heart disease, it is still the number one killer of both men and women. Moreover, women tend to be at more risk for heart disease than men if they also have diabetes.
- Another factor that is beyond your control is family history. You are at increased risk if your father, or a brother, suffered from heart disease before the age of 55, or if your mother or a sister had the condition before the age of 65. Overall, some 1 in 500 people in the world suffer from what is called familial hypercholesterolemia – which causes very high levels of cholesterol. It is a condition that is more common in people of some backgrounds than others – those whose families are Afrikaners (South Africa), French Canadians, Lebanese and Finns tend to be at the most risk. The condition is literally genetic – it is caused by a mutation in a certain gene, called the LDLR gene. Still, experts say that usually high cholesterol levels are caused by a combination of things – lifestyle and heredity.
Learn more about cholesterol
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