HDL (the so-called “good” cholesterol), and triglycerides (another fatty product).
. .. This is especially – you might say “life-savingly” important – for those who are significantly overweight, those with strong risks for diabetes, those who smoke, those who are mostly sedentary, those under lots of stress, those with poor family histories of heart disease, and anyone else with other major risk factors for heart disease and stroke, which, when you look around you, is actually nearly every one of us.
. .. Why is a lipid profile such an important test to get? Because an abnormal lipid profile (what most people often inaccurately refer to as “high cholesterol” but which may consist only of a low HDL level) is a very significant risk factor for heart disease and strokes (it will also, I am sure prove to be a significant risk factor for many other health problems, too, most notably, some forms of dementia).
. .. And since there are generally no symptoms to indicate your lipid levels might be abnormal, the only way you’d ever know that you have a problem you should control is to get that full blood check.
. .. The other thing I want to stress is that everyone should get this test at as young an age as they can talk their doctor into ordering it. Why? First, because I believe that every adult should know what level of risk they are running for heart attack and stroke, and knowing your “cholesterol” levels is an important part of that knowledge. Further, since we are living through an incredible rise in obesity and other cardiac risk factors in very young populations (yes, I mean among kids), unless we become much more active in lowering risks in ever younger people, I’m certain that not too long in the future, we’re going to see a sharp rise in heart attacks and strokes in young adults (“young” to me is the 45-60 age group). In fact, a recent American study found that although overall deaths from cardiac disease have been falling (in large part because we’re able to keep people with heart disease alive so much longer now so that they eventually die of some other cause), deaths from heart disease have recently risen in young women and perhaps in young men as well. And I think it’s only going to get worse, probably much worse.
. ..But it doesn’t have to end that way because I |
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