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According to the American Heart Association, heart disease is the number one killer in the United States. If you have high cholesterol you are particularly susceptible to heart disease and heart attacks.
There are three very important things you must be aware of in order to help prevent a heart attack from disrupting or even ending your life or the life of a loved one.
You must know:
- High cholesterol doesn’t show any symptoms. Many people don’t even realize they have high cholesterol or that they are at risk for a heart attack.
- High cholesterol can happen at any age. There are people in their early twenties who struggle with high cholesterol and there are people in their seventies and eighties who don’t have a problem. Age is no indicator whether cholesterol will be a problem for you, or not.
- High cholesterol is no respecter of persons. It can affect either men or women. For some reason people think that men are more likely to have high cholesterol, but that isn’t necessarily the case. Many women struggle with their cholesterol as well.
What is cholesterol?
Cholesterol is a little bit like fat. Although it is made in the liver, some foods also contain cholesterol. Our bodies need some cholesterol, but the problem arises when we have too much.
Unfortunately, cholesterol does not dissolve in our blood. It builds up on the walls of arteries which then become narrow. When the build-up of cholesterol causes the arteries to narrow, the blood flow to the heart is blocked preventing much needed oxygen to reach the heart.
When you experience chest pain, it may be because your heart did not get enough blood and oxygen. You could have a heart attack if the arty to the heart becomes blocked.
In the next post, we will discuss cholesterol more thoroughly and let you know what you can do to manage high cholesterol.
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