Easy To Understand Information About Cholesterol Numbers

Your blood cholesterol numbers tell a story about who you are and what type of diet you consume. They may even foretell a major catastrophic event such as a heart attack or stroke. Despite getting a bad rap cholesterol is still a very important fat for healthy body function. This wax like substance floats around in your blood like oil on top of water and is an essential component of cell membranes, brain and nerve cells, bile, and helps the body absorb fats and fat soluble vitamins. The body uses cholesterol to product vitamin D and various hormones such as estrogen, testosterone, and cortisol.



To make things even more complicated cholesterol levels are remarkably inconsistent. In other words from day to day your cholesterol numbers could vary as much as 10 percent being influenced by changes that occur with aging, heredity and other disorders, use of certain drugs, diet, or lifestyle choices, including lack or exercise or smoking.



Blood cholesterol numbers are determined from a simple blood test with your doctor looking at four categories: total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein (LDL), high density lipoprotein (HDL), and triglycerides. Triglycerides which are contained in fat cells can be broken down, then used for to provide energy for the body's metabolic processes, including growth.



As we can see all types of cholesterol play an important role in day to day body function and maintaining cholesterol numbers in a healthy level is very important to good health. Too high and you increase your risk of atherosclerosis, heart attack and stroke; too low and you will likely experience muscle aches, pains, fatigue, and in extreme cases muscle death and liver failure.



Next let's move on to the general guidelines for cholesterol numbers and good cholesterol levels.



*A total blood cholesterol level of less than 200 is considered ideal, with 200 to 239 being on the borderline of high, and anything over 240 considered high.



*LDL or bad cholesterol levels of less than 100 is considered ideal, with 100 to 129 considered to be slightly elevated, 130 to 159 is considered to be borderline high, and 160 or above is high.



*HDL or good cholesterol levels of 60 or above is considered healthy, with 40 to 59 considered to be slightly low, and less than 40 is dangerously low.



What Next? Lowering cholesterol in order to establish healthy cholesterol numbers, in most cases, is about changing old habits, adopting new healthier habits, and enlisting the help of convention medications such as statins or natural cholesterol reducing remedies if needed. Put simply, this basically means finding ways to increase HDL (good cholesterol) and decrease LDL (bad cholesterol levels). Certainly the aforementioned statin drugs will be one of your options, but they do carry a number of serious label warnings. The side effect risks have made natural cholesterol reduction supplements combined with diet modification an alternative treatment combination worth considering.