What is the importance of cholesterol on your health? Does high cholesterol cause heart attacks? How can you estimate your chances of having a heart attack, and what can be done to prevent one? What are heart attack causes? In Doctablet’s second animated novel our professor goes on a time traveling adventure to help answer these important questions!
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Why do we worry about cholesterol?
Why is it we worry so much about cholesterol levels? The professor has been hard at work trying to research this… Does high cholesterol cause heart attacks? It says here bad cholesterol is produced by our bodies. So how can it be that something we make naturally leads to heart attacks? Heart attacks are the number one reason why both men and women die, this crosses all boundaries of race and ethnicity. In the United States, someone has a heart attack every 34 seconds and every minute someone dies of a heart related event. Heart attacks kill more people than ALL forms of cancer combined. Heart attacks are very common. Unfortunately, this fact goes largely unnoticed by the public.
Heart attack causes include age, smoking, high colesterol, hypertension, diabetes, obesity and lack of exercise
This looks like a real crisis. We will activate the Doctablet Time machine and travel to a time when there was hardly any heart attacks to see if we can find answers that can explain what is happening to the human race!
Humans evolved in nature. Our bodies are designed to be active all day and our digestive system was created to accept foods we gather directly from nature. To help understand heart attack causes better, the Doctablet professor will activate his HEALTH RAY VISION!! When he looks at the cavemen he notices: The people are young. They have clear lungs! No pollution in the air, no cigarettes to smoke! Health ray vision shows his good cholesterol is high and his bad cholesterol is low. His blood pressure is completely normal, he eats no salt! His diet is rich in fresh fruits, vegetables and nuts! He exercises everyday, and his muscles are strong! Conclusion: His chances of having a heart attack are very low.
Now lets go back to the lab and travel to a time when heart attacks are VERY common! THE MODERN ERA! Modern human beings behave in a very different way than what we were designed to; most of us don’t exercise, eat poorly, and many people smoke. “UFF”, our professor can barely fly here because there so much pollution!! Let’s ACTIVATE HEALTH RAY VISION. This man is older. Health ray vision shows his cholesterol levels: good cholesterol is low and his bad cholesterol is very high. HE IS SMOKING!! His diet is very poor in fruits and vegetables and rich in sugar. He does not exercise at all! He sits all day and barely walks! Conclusion: His chances of having a heart attack are very high!! AMAZING!!! Now lets get back to the office and put all this together!
What should my cholesterol levels be?
Depends on your chances of having a heart attack
After that adventure, it is all making sense to the Professor.
His research shows:
Cholesterol is made by the body!
Like our modern man, a poor diet and too little exercise makes cholesterol go up.
If you have an unhealthy lifestyle and have high cholesterol, your chance of having a heart attack goes up over time.
As you age, the chance of you have of having a heart attack rises. Age is the most important part of your risk. Stopping cigarettes can cut your chances of dying by half. AVOID diabetes if your doctor has told you that you have pre-diabetes or make sure you are TREATING it if you have it already. High blood pressure gives you a higher risk of having a heart attack, treating it lowers this chance. Lowering your cholesterol offers you a way to treat your total risk of a heart attack.
Use the professors experience to understand the importance of cholesterol in your body. As you age, your risk is of having a heart attack is expected to climb. Manage this risk by controlling your blood pressure and diabetes, stopping cigarettes and treating your cholesterol.
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Other than age, cholesterol leves, hypertension, smoking status, and diabetes there are a few other tools cardiologist have to estimate your chances of having a heart attack. These include a blood test called the High Sensitivity C- Reactive Protein, the carotid ultrasound and also the coronary calcium score obtained by computed tomography of the heart. Calculating your cardiac risk is one of the most important parts of any medical evaluation. I encourage all my patients to know their cardiac risk. Here is one of my favorite websites to do so: https://statindecisionaid.mayoclinic.org/