If you have diabetes, your risk for heart disease and stroke is the same as people who already have heart disease. Because of this, your target LDL levels should be lower than the average person’s.

Obesity has many factors. The most basic factor is calories. If you eat more calories than your body uses, your body stores it as fat and you gain weight. One pound of fat is equal to 3500 extra calories.

Moderate alcohol use has been correlated with health benefits. Moderate alcohol use is defined for men and women differently. For women, one drink per day is considered moderate. For men, two drinks per day is considered moderate.

The overall main goals for lowering cholesterol levels is actually to lower low density lipoproteins (LDL’s) while increasing high density lipoproteins (HDL’s). Lowering the presence of low density lipoproteins has been medically proven to decrease overall risk for the development of artery hardening, heart disease, and heart attacks.

Over 30 million Americans have dangerously high cholesterol. So why is this number so large when proper diet and exercise are often all that is needed to lower cholesterol?

The American Heart Association states that more than a third of Americans over the age of 20 have either high or borderline-high cholesterol. Why aren’t more people responding to this condition after recognizing its symptoms? Well, that’s because high cholesterol doesn’t have symptoms.

Triglycerides are the chemical form that most fats in your body are stored as. They are a major source of energy in the body and are acquired directly from the foods we eat in addition to the triglycerides the body makes.

Most people don’t even think about cholesterol until they’re well into adulthood. But the truth is; high cholesterol can occur in people of any age, even children.

LDL isn’t inherently bad; without it we wouldn’t survive. But when too much LDL is present, the fatty cholesterol that it carries can build up on artery walls. Much like an accident on the freeway can quickly accumulate the presence of vehicles, hindering overall flow of traffic; LDL can cause a build-up of cells and molecules.

To remember which cholesterol is the good one and which is the bad, think of ‘healthy’ and ‘lousy’. HDL cholesterol is the good kind, the kind that can keep you healthy. It functions by taking excess cholesterol from the arteries and returning it to the liver for excretion.