Cholesterol Week Cont'd.

Helloo there. Yesterday I was just generally talking about what cholesterol is – basically an ingredient of your cells that is responsible for holding your cells together, maintaining normal neurological function, and manufacturing other substances like bile and hormones.

Why is it considered so bad, then? Well over the past several decades, the medical community was trying to figure out what caused cardiovascular disease (heart attacks, strokes, etc.). Then scientists discovered a way to measure cholesterol in the blood. So they started measuring and doing studies and the studies were linking cholesterol levels to cardiovascular problems. A link doesn't mean that LDL causes cardiovascular disease, just that the two tend to occur together.

At first, total cholesterol levels (LDL + HDL) were considered "normal" if they were around 240. Then in 1984 there was a Cholesterol Consensus Conference where everyone agreed that what should be considered "normal" needed to be lower, around 200. If a patient gets blood work done now and his or her total cholesterol is 200 or above, chances are he or she will be advised to lower it, possibly through medication. (I’ll get to that). Apparently 180 is now a good number.

Remember how I said that there are different types of cholesterol? Well these cholesterol numbers you get from a blood test normally don’t include a breakdown of the different kinds with the exception of differentiating LDL from HDL. This is a problem because it is becoming pretty clear that LDL alone is not the "bad" type of cholesterol. It is a certain type of LDL – called lipoprotein (a) aka Lp(a) that actually causes the problems in your arteries. This is not part of a normal lipid profile test. I am getting a physical soon so I am going to ask if that can be included in my test (just to see if it’s even possible).

Another thing that needs to be considered when looking at your cholesterol numbers is the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL and the ratio of LDL to HDL. This is normally calculated for you when you get a blood test. Numbers should be:

Total cholesterol: HDL should be 4 or under
LDL:HDL should be 2.5 or under

Getting your cholesterol numbers is only a small part of the picture. Even though they doesn’t necessarily mean much, this is what doctors focus on. Why? I don’t know. But despite all the attempts at telling people to lower their cholesterol, the problem of cardiovascular disease (CVD) hasn’t gone away and only seems to be getting worse. That is because other factors besides cholesterol have been identified that contribute to CVD. They just aren’t being acknowledged right now by regular medical peeps.

Tomorrow I will write about research that implicates other factors besides just high LDL in cardiovascular disease. Meanwhile, if your total cholesterol is above 200 or if you enjoy a piece of cheese on occasion, don’t sweat it for now. Wait until you can talk to a health professional that won’t push medicine on you.