Reducing Your Heart Disease Risk by Managing Your Cholesterol
Those of us who are at risk for heart disease need to learn how to manage our cholesterol levels including both our LDL (bad cholesterol) and our HDL (good cholesterol). The fortunate ones who have good blood cholesterol levels but have risk factors for heart disease like family history, or age for example, should also participate in a cholesterol management plan. It is never too early to start developing heart healthy habits or to start checking those cholesterol levels or to know what your heart disease risk factors are.
Making a cholesterol management plan is the easy part; keeping to the plan is what takes discipline. Your healthcare provider can help you to determine what your heart risk factors are and specifically if you have cholesterol risk factors. Once you know what your risk factors are, then you can devise a cholesterol management plan based on your risk factors.
If you are tested and are found to have high LDL cholesterol level or a low HDL cholesterol level, then your cholesterol management plan is vital for you to make and keep.
A cholesterol management plan will also decrease your risk for stroke because reducing your LDL cholesterol level will have that benefit for you.
Your healthcare professional will put you on a regular schedule of cholesterol checks so that you can stay on top of what your levels are doing in response to your cholesterol management plan.
Your cholesterol management plan should include all three elements that contribute to achieving healthy cholesterol levels including diet, lifestyle changes and exercise. A third element is only used when the other 3 combined do not achieve the results that you and your healthcare team determine are your desired cholesterol goals. That fourth element of the cholesterol management plan is medication. Medication is added to your cholesterol plan only if the first 3 elements alone are not sufficient to reach your goals because medications can and do have side effects that must be balanced with the benefit of taking the medication.
Your healthcare team helping you to design and manage your cholesterol management plan is the best individuals to go to when you have questions about your cholesterol levels or how to implement the plan. The team may consist of your doctor, nurse, nutritionist, and any other lifestyle therapist or management team member necessary based on your individual needs. If you have a disease such as heart disease or diabetes, the doctor that cares for your disease should also be a part of your cholesterol management team.
Your role in the team is to understand what your cholesterol levels mean and to have an input concerning your lifestyle risk factors and how best to improve your health by changing or improving on these habits. It is also your responsibility to understand all verbal and written instructions regarding your plan, especially the medications if any, that are a part of your plan. Medications are only effective if you take them correctly. Dietary and lifestyle changes should be implemented in such a way so that they will not stress you out further and also so that they can be attainable by you. This is why it is important that you be a part of the designing of the cholesterol management plan.
Your healthcare team can give you several tools that will help you to achieve your cholesterol management plan.
When designing your cholesterol management plan you will first need to have a complete physical examination, a complete cholesterol profile, an exercise assessment and a dietary evaluation. You may need additional blood levels measured and evaluated depending on the finding of your exam, and dietary and exercise evaluations.
Your cholesterol management plan will be individualized based on the findings from your exam and lifestyle evaluations. No two cholesterol management plans are exactly the same because no two individuals are exactly the same regarding age, sex, physical condition, health, and diet and exercise habits.
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