What Does High Cholesterol Feel Like?

High cholesterol can be life-threatening condition if left untreated, because it can significantly affect the blood flow inside the blood vessels of your body. Unfortunately, many times we don’t know when it occurs. And in fact, doctors cannot tell clearly about its specific symptoms and what it feels like! However there are plenty of options you can follow to control it and keep it off.

Actually, in healthy level, cholesterol is needed by the body to support some body’s functions such as to help produce healthy cells. But when it gets higher than normal, this can be a problem.

There are some factors that can put you at higher risk of developing high cholesterol.

Though some of these risk factors are unchangeable, fortunately most of them are changeable and controllable. In other words, generally high cholesterol is treatable and preventable.

The options in controlling and lowering cholesterol often involve the opposite ways of changeable risk factors of the problem. The following are some risk factors of high cholesterol:

1. Becoming a sedentary individual. People with lack of physical activity are more likely to have high cholesterol than other active or moderately active individuals. Regular exercise is important for your entire health, including for your blood flow and the level of your HDL (good cholesterol).
2. Diabetes. Excessive sugar /glucose in the blood can trigger LDL raise. On the other side, it can cause your HDL decrease. In people with diabetes, the episodes of high blood sugar are more common than others without diabetes. Furthermore in fact, high cholesterol is also pretty common in people with diabetes. So if you have diabetes, it’s very crucial to control your blood sugar to keep it off.
3. Hypertension. High blood pressure can make any fatty deposits carried by lipoprotein through blood become easier to accumulate on the walls of blood vessels. As a result, the plague builds up can form faster, either for increased cholesterol in the blood.
4. Foods that you eat can play a key role in controlling your cholesterol. If you get used with diet high in cholesterol and saturated fats, this can be very bad for your blood flow.
5. Overweight. If you are overweight, you are relatively easier to have both high cholesterol and high blood pressure than when you are at your best shape. If you are not at your healthy weight, losing weight can very help improve your entire health!
6. Cigarette smoking – most people agree that it is not only harmful for your cardiovascular system but also for your entire health.
7. Having a family history of cardiovascular disease also has an effect to your risk (it is unchangeable risk factor).
8. Another uncontrollable risk factor is your age. As you age, your risk increases!

Unfortunately, medically there is no any symptom or sign of high cholesterol. When you have it, there is no any noticeable effect that you can feel until it gets worse.

So, the only one to get to know whether your cholesterol is normal or too high is by taking a blood test.

We all agree that it’s much better to prevent it before it gets worse. But many times there is no any symptom of high cholesterol – so, what you should do?

For teenagers or younger adults, a blood test for cholesterol should be done for at least once in 5 years after the age of 20. But it should be more frequently done in men over 45 and women over 35.

Furthermore, you need to adopt healthy lifestyles and habits as much as possible to improve your entire health and reduce your risk of developing high levels of cholesterol. These can include:

1. Lose weight if you are not at the best scale of your healthy weight!
2. Get your exercise most days of the week.
3. Eat healthfully. Foods low in fat ‘particularly for saturated fat’ should be restricted. On the other hand, full the diet with more foods high in fiber & other essential nutrients. Choose whole foods instead of processed foods is also recommended
4. Watch on alcohol – it can be much better if you drink alcohol in moderation!
5. And if you are not a smoker, you are on the right track and never try it! But if you are a smoker and if you can stop it, this can be great to improve your overall health, either for your cholesterol control.

Over time, left untreated high cholesterol can be a silent killer.

Once it gets worse, there is change for the following complications to occur: