Primarily diet, hereditary factors, and diseases such as diabetes influence the quantity of cholesterol in the blood. Cholesterol is a waxy, fatlike matter that your body needs to function in general. Cholesterol is naturally present in cell walls or membranes everywhere in the body, as well as the brain, nerves, muscles, skin, liver, intestines, and heart.

Your body uses cholesterol to produce many hormones, vitamin D, and the bile acids that help to assimilate fat. It takes only a small quantity of cholesterol in the blood to meet these needs. If you have too much cholesterol in your bloodstream, the excess may be deposited in arteries, including the coronary (heart) arteries, where it contributes to the narrowing and blockages that cause of heart disease. Coronary heart disease (CHD) is caused by cholesterol and fat being deposited in the arteries that supply nutrients and oxygen to heart. Like any muscle, the heart needs a regular provide of oxygen and nutrients, which are carried to it by the blood in the coronary arteries.

Fixed narrowing that is often hardened usually cause chest pain. Less severe narrowing may contain unstable blockages called atherosclerotic or fatty plaque. Unbalanced atherosclerotic plaque can rupture, resulting in clot formation, no blood flow, and a heart attack. If sufficient oxygen-carrying blood is blocked from reaching your heart, you may experience a type of chest pain called angina. If the blood supply to a portion of the heart is completely bring to a halt by total blockage of a coronary artery, the result is a heart attack. This is usually due to a sudden closure of the artery from a blood clot forming on top of uneven plaque.

A simple blood test makes sure for high cholesterol. Basically knowing your total cholesterol level is not enough. An entire lipid profile measures your LDL (low-density lipoprotein [the bad cholesterol]), total cholesterol, HDL (high-density lipoprotein [the good cholesterol]), and triglycerides—another fatty substance in the blood. Government guidelines say healthy adults should have this analysis at least every 5 years once. A diet high in saturated fat (a type of fat found mostly in foods that come from animals and some vegetable oils) increase LDL levels more than anything else in your diet.

We may eat cholesterol in your diet, although the effect of saturated fat in the diet is greater than the effect of dietary cholesterol. Trans-fatty acids can also increase LDL levels. Dietary cholesterol is found merely in foods from animal products. Genetic factors combined with eating in excess of saturated fat and cholesterol are the major reasons for high levels of cholesterol that lead to heart attacks. Reducing the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol you eat is a main step in reducing your blood cholesterol levels. Some studies have confirmed a direct link between high blood cholesterol and CHD. Lowering total and LDL (bad) cholesterol levels significantly reduces coronary heart disease.

A series of more recent trials of cholesterol-lowering using drugs have conclusively demonstrated that lowering total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol reduces your possibility of having a heart attack, needing bypass surgery or angioplasty, and dying of CHD-related causes. Lowering cholesterol in people without heart disease greatly reduces their risk for developing heart disease in the first place and this is true for those with high cholesterol levels and for those with average cholesterol levels. Lowering cholesterol reduced the number of heart attacks and deaths from cardiovascular causes in men with high blood cholesterol levels who had not had a heart attack.

The symptoms of high cholesterol in the bloodstream: if you have a high cholesterol level, but a high level in conjunction with other adverse factors increases the risk of developing arteriosclerosis and cardiovascular disease. Arteriosclerosis results in narrowing of the arteries and it does not occur suddenly, but builds up over many years during which cholesterol and fat have been deposited in the artery walls. The result is that the arteries become thin and hardened, their elasticity disappears and the volume of blood able to travel through them is reduced.

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