What Does It Mean to Have High Cholesterol?

Understand and maintain cholesterol levels to prevent a heart attack

So, you have a routine doctors visit which leads to routine blood work. Ok no worries. You have been eating healthy for the most part, exercising when you can or at least 3 times a week and you feel fine. Life's a peach.

Blood work results come back. You're scrolling through and It all looks good, everything that was tested is in normal range... Until you get to Cholesterol and LDL "bad" levels. Flagged for being high. But how? You thought you were healthy....ish. You check with family members and It turns out It runs in the family. damn.

Well alright. Time to get a hold on this. But first, lets understand what this even means.

What is Cholesterol? It is a waxy, fat-like substance found in all of the cells in your body. Your body needs some cholesterol and makes all of the cholesterol It needs. If you have too much cholesterol in your blood, It can combine with other substances and forms plaque which sticks to the walls of your arteries. This could lead to narrowing of the arteries or even blocked arteries.

There are many factors that cause high cholesterol including: poor diet, age, lack of exercise, being over weight, smoking, and drinking alcohol. It can also run in your family. Eating foods containing saturated and trans fats causes your body to produce even more LDL, raising the level of "bad" (LDL) cholesterol in your blood.

If you're a foodie, its worth understanding the different kinds of fats.

Saturated Fat

These fats are typically solids at room temperature. They occur naturally in many foods, mostly in meat and dairy products. Other foods include beef, lamb, pork, butter, cream and cheese made from whole or 2 % milk.

Plant based foods that contain saturated fats include coconut, coconut oil, cocoa butter as well as palm oil and palm kernel oil.

For people who need to lower their cholesterol, the American Heart Association recommends reducing saturated fat to less than 6% of total daily calories. For someone eating 2,000 calories a day, that's about 11-13 grams of saturated fat.

Trans Fat

Also known as trans fatty acids are created in an industrial process. They raise your bad (LDL) cholesterol levels and lower your good (HDL) cholesterol levels. HDL (high density lipoprotein) is good because It carries cholesterol from other parts of your body back to your liver. your liver then removes the cholesterol from your body. LDL (low density lipoprotein) is bad because too much of this causes plaque buildup.

Trans fats are found in many fried foods, baked goods like pastries, pizza dough, pie crust, cookies and crackers.

The American Heart Association recommends that adults who would benefit from lowering LDL cholesterol should eliminate trans fat from their diet.

Unsaturated Fat

There are two kinds of unsaturated fats; monounsaturated meaning one unsaturated carbon bond in the molecule and polyunsaturated meaning many unsaturated carbon bonds in the molecule. They are both typically liquid at room temperature.

Unsaturated fats include: fish as in salmon, trout and herring, and plant based foods like avocados, olives and walnuts. Liquid veggie oils like soybean, corn, safflower, canola, olive and sunflower also contain unsaturated fats.

Eaten in moderation, both forms of unsaturated fats can help improve blood cholesterol levels when replacing saturated and trans fats.

So how do you lower your intake of saturated and trans fats?

- maintain your diet; focus on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy products, poultry, fish and nuts.

- limit red meat and sugar-sweetened foods and drinks.

- use vegetable oils like canola, safflower, sunflower or olive oil.

- limit processed foods containing saturated fat; look for foods made with unhydrogenated oil.

- use soft margarine as a substitute for butter. Look for "0 g trans fat" on Nutrition Labels

- examples of foods high in trans fat: doughnuts, cookies, crackers, muffins, pies and cakes. limit intake.

- limit fried foods, fried fast food, and deep fried food.

- when cooking chicken or turkey, remove the skin or leave the skin on to cook and remove before eating.

- limit processed meats like sausage, bologna, salami and hot dogs. These types of foods are also high in calories and sodium.

- limit dairy products like whole milk, ice cream, butter and cheese.