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High Cholesterol Treatments

The main goal for treating high cholesterol is to lower the LDL levels enough to reduce the risk of developing heart disease. The higher the risk, the lower the LDL goal must be. There are two main ways to treat high cholesterol:

Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC):
This includes a cholesterol-lowering diet, physical activity, and weight management. TLC is meant for anyone who has elevated LDL levels. TLC is a set of things that a person has to follow in order to achieve the targeted low levels of LDL cholesterol. TLC consists of:

The TLC Diet: This diet consists of a low-saturated-fat, low-cholesterol eating plan that begets less than:

• 7% of calories from saturated fat
• 200mg of dietary cholesterol per day

This diet recommends only limited calories for desirable weight maintenance and avoiding weight gain. LDL levels can also be lowed by increasing the amount of soluble fiber in the diet. Certain food products that contain plant stanols or plant sterols can also be added to the TLC diet to boost its LDL-lowering power.

Weight Management: Weight loss can also help lower LDL levels and this is especially important for those with a cluster of risk factors that include high triglyceride and/or low HDL levels and being overweight with a large waist circumference (more than 40 inches for men and more than 35 inches for women).

Physical Activity: Regular physical activity is recommended for everyone. It can help raise HDL levels and lower LDL levels. This is especially important for those people who have high triglyceride and/or low HDL levels and are overweight with a large waist measurement.

Drug Treatment: Cholesterol-lowering drugs are used in combination with TLC treatment to achieve positive results.

Any drug treatment to lower cholesterol is best combined with lifestyle changes to achieve positive and long-term results. This will help keep you on low doses of medicine. Several cholesterol lowering drug treatments include:

• Statins: These drugs, including Crestor, effectively lower LDL levels and are safe for most people
• Bile acid sequestrates: Also help lower LDL levels and can be used alone or in combination with statin drugs
• Nicotinic acid: Helps lower LDL levels and triglycerides while raising HDL levels
• Fibric acids: Helps lower LDL levels somewhat but are used mainly to treat high triglyceride and low HDL levels
• Cholesterol absorption inhibitors: helps lower LDL levels and can be used alone or in combination with statin drugs

Your doctor is the best person to help decide which type of drug is best for you.

To further reduce high cholesterol you must control other risk factors like:

• High blood pressure
• Stress
• Smoking

Lowering cholesterol levels brings on certain benefits:

• For every one percent fall in blood cholesterol levels, you reduce your risk for heart disease by two percent
• Even in patients with heart disease, lowering cholesterol levels will significantly reduce the risk for death and disability
• As blood cholesterol exceeds 220 ml/dl (milligrams per deciliter), risk for heart disease increases at a more rapid rate
• Blood cholesterol levels must be measured at least once every five years in all adults

How does Crestor work?

Most of the cholesterol present in the blood is made within the body, by the liver. This is where Crestor gets to work. It blocks an enzyme in the liver which reduces the amount of LDL (bad) cholesterol produced by the liver and raises the HDL (good) cholesterol levels. Crestor, when combined with a healthy non-fatty diet, slows the progression of atherosclerosis.

By limiting cholesterol production, Crestor lowers the total amount of cholesterol in the bloodstream. In fact, Crestor lowers LDL cholesterol by up to 52% (at the 10-mg dose) versus 7% with a placebo. Moreover, it works to increase the HDL cholesterol levels in the blood by up to 14% (at the 10-mg dose) versus 3% with a placebo.

To get the greatest benefit from Crestor, a cholesterol medication, it is essential that a patient follows a diet low in saturated fats and exercises regularly.

Crestor may not work for everyone. It can cause mild to severe side effects, even though infrequent. Therefore, it is important that one make an informed choice when taking a cholesterol medication.

Obesity, a disease of excess fat tissue in the body, is now acknowledged as a major risk factor for atherosclerotic coronary heart disease. Medical research into lipids and cardiovascular disease has identified some of the reasons for this risk

The health risks of obesity vary with the amount of weight gain. Thus the increased cardiovascular health risk for a mildly obese person may be relatively small compared to the significant dangers posed by a morbidly obese person. Obesity with high cholesterol poses an extra danger to heart health because:

• It raises blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels
• It somewhat lowers HDL - the good cholesterol levels (HDL is associated with low risk for heart disease and stroke)
• It can raise blood pressure levels
• It is strongly linked to incidence and prevalence of type 2 diabetes (diabetics are a high-risk group for all types of vascular disease)
• The obese commonly experience great difficulty when exercising; but physical exercise helps reduce cholesterol and the risk for heart disease

How weight loss affects cholesterol?

If you are obese, losing as little as 10% of the weight can bring noticeable improvements in serum cholesterol and other lipid levels. Any weight loss program must offer maximum support and should be followed with a balanced diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables, moderate in protein and high-fiber low-GI carbs, with only small amounts of trans fats and saturates.

Health experts generally agree that adults can benefit from weight loss if they are moderately to severely overweight and have weight-related medical problems or a family history of such problems. The weight-related health problems include diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, or high blood sugar levels. A small weight loss of 10-20 pounds can also improve both blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

Excess weight tends to increase the LDL cholesterol levels. Eating a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, exercising regularly, and cutting calories will help in weight loss and this will in turn lower cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

Obesity and cholesterol are well connected to each other. Obesity is basically defined as a state where calorie intake is more than used by the body. Being obese or overweight, you have higher risk of:

• High Cholesterol (Having high levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol in your blood)
• Stroke
• Increased blood pressure and heart diseases
• Diabetes

How obesity leads to high LDL (Bad cholesterol)

High density lipoprotein (HDL) or good cholesterol helps to remove extra fat from body thus preventing the clogging of arteries. With increase in body weight, level of low density lipoprotein (LDL) or bad cholesterol rises and lowers HDL level which results in large deposits of cholesterol build up on walls of arteries and blocked blood flow towards heart and other parts of body. Insufficient blood flow towards heart can result in increased risk of heart attack and other heart diseases.

Losing as little as 10 percent of your weight can bring noticeable improvements in your cholesterol level and protection from heart diseases. A person with a Body Mass Index (BMI) above the healthy weight range may benefit from weight loss for other health issues like high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes and of course, a sedentary lifestyle.