High Cholesterol And Self Testing

Heart disease is the principal killer in most countries in the Western world and it is becoming more prevalent in the Third World too as American-style junk food becomes more popular there as well. One aspect of heart disease is high blood pressure and another is a high level of LDL, or 'bad', cholesterol and triglycerides.

Because of this, many doctors reckon that all people more than the age of eighteen ought to have their cholesterol levels scrutinized at least once a year, especially if you know that your diet is fairly suspect or if you have genetic problems which mean that you will have high cholesterol.

Once you realize that you have a problem, then you should definitely have a check up every year and take some steps to minimize your consumption of foodstuffs that raise your cholesterol levels. Foods that fall into this category are those that contain saturated fats or hydrogenated, trans fats.

This in essence means cutting out these fats. Saturated fats are prevalent in red meats and full-fat dairy products like milk, butter, cheese, cream, and beef and pork. Hydrogenated trans fats are common in commercial junk food like hamburgers, hot dogs, potato crisps, potato chips, pies and pasties.

If you have high levels of blood fats like HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and triglycerides you have to do something and that means that you have two alternatives: which means that you have to either introduce lifestyle alterations or take tablets for the rest of your life.

If you want to try fixing the problem yourself without tablets but with your medical doctor's assistance, you will have to have frequent check ups to keep an eye on your progress or you could buy a home cholesterol monitor. If you take this path, you will have to understand the monitor's readings.

There are usually three or four vital readings: LDL, HDL, Total Cholesterol and Triglycerides. HDL (or 'good cholesterol' should be| 40 or more; LDL (or 'bad cholesterol') should be less than 100-130. However, most home testing kits will only give the total cholesterol level, which ought to be below 200.

This total cholesterol reading is not completely satisfactory because you will not know the individual cholesterol levels. After all, under 200 can still be very, very bad. Even very dangerous. However, if you take a doctor's test each quarter and you test at home until you acquire a feel for the impact that the measures you are taking are having, you should bel all right between tests.

However, these home test cholesterol monitors are becoming more and more advanced every year, so it is worth going to a substantial national chemists and seeing what is on sale from time to time. Anyway, if going to the physician is difficult or very costly, this might be your sole choice.

The reality is that home test kits are not very good yet, but they are better than nothing if used in conjunction with regular visits to the physician, but on their own they do not give the whole picture and their results cannot be relied upon as an indication that your cholesterol levels are alright.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a number of subjects, but is now involved with low fat low cholesterol diet. If you want to know more, please visit our site at What Foods Lower Cholesterol?