■ Diet. Saturated fat and cholesterol in the food you eat make your blood cholesterol level go up. Saturated fat is the main culprit, but cholesterol in foods also matters. Reducing the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol in your diet helps lower your blood cholesterol level.
■ Weight. Being overweight is a risk factor for heart disease. It also tends to increase your cholesterol. Losing weight can help lower your LDL and total cholesterol levels, as well as raise your HDL and lower your triglyceride levels.
■ Physical Activity. Not being physically active is a risk factor for heart disease. Regular physical activity can help lower LDL (bad) cholesterol and raise HDL (good) cholesterol levels. It also helps you lose weight. You should try to be physically active for 30 minutes on most, if not all, days.
Things you cannot do anything about also can affect cholesterol levels.
These include:
■ Age and Gender. As women and men get older, their cholesterol levels rise. Before the age of menopause, women have lower total cholesterol levels than men of the same age. After the age of menopause, women’s LDL levels tend to rise.
■ Heredity. Your genes partly determine how much cholesterol your body makes. High blood cholesterol can run in families.
Besides cholesterol levels, other factors increase the risk of heart disease. These factors include cigarette smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes, a family history of premature heart disease, and being a male over 44 years of age or a female over 54. Individuals with two or more of these factors have high risk of heart attack, particularly if they also have atherosclerosis (narrowing of the arteries because of fatty deposits).
