High cholesterol, also called hypercholesteremia, puts men at greater risk for heart attacks, strokes, and peripheral artery disease. For many men, the risk from high cholesterol starts in their 20s and increases with age.
High cholesterol tends to run in families, so obviously genes play a role. But a variety of lifestyle choices -- including diet, activity, and body weight -- also affect cholesterol levels. The only way to know how high your cholesterol levels are is to get a simple blood test. Everyone over 20 should get a cholesterol test at least once every 5 years. If your numbers are high, your doctor may recommend the test more often.
Did You Know?
Under the Affordable Care Act, many health insurance plans will cover preventive care services, including blood pressure and cholesterol screenings, at no cost to you. Learn more.
Cholesterol is a waxy, fat-like substance made in the liver and other cells. It’s also found in certain foods, such as dairy products, eggs, and meat.
Your body needs some cholesterol to function properly. Its cell walls, also known as membranes, need cholesterol to produce hormones, vitamin D, and the bile acids that help you digest fat. But the body only needs a limited amount of cholesterol. When there’s too much, health problems, such as heart disease, may develop.
There are different kinds of cholesterol, and if there’s too much of certain kinds in your blood, a fatty deposit called plaque can build up on the walls of your arteries. It’s like rust on the inside of a pipe. This plaque build-up can block blood flow to the heart muscle, reducing its oxygen supply. If levels of blood and oxygen to the heart drop far enough, you may start feeling chest pain or find yourself short of breath. A heart attack happens when the plaque completely blocks a blood vessel feeding a section of the heart muscle. If the plaque blocks a blood vessel going to your brain, you can have a stroke.
The cholesterol that blocks arteries is called low-density lipoprotein, or LDL. Another kind of cholesterol called high-density lipoprotein or HDL is known as good cholesterol because it helps remove LDL from the blood and eventually from the body. For good health, you ideally want to keep the LDL levels down and the HDL levels up. If this balance isn’t maintained, especially if it’s reversed, you are said to have high cholesterol.