Bad Cholesterol 101

A change in diet in addition to other lifestyle modifications may help reduce blood cholesterol.

Avoiding animal products may decrease the cholesterol levels in the body not through dietary cholesterol reduction alone but primarily through a reduced saturated fat intake.

Those wishing to reduce their cholesterol through a change in diet should aim to consume less than 7% of their daily calories from saturated fat and less than 200 mg of cholesterol per day.

The view that a change in diet (to be specific, a reduction in dietary fat and cholesterol) can lower blood cholesterol levels, and thus reduce the likelihood of development of, among others, coronary artery disease (CHD) has been challenged.

An alternative view is that any reductions to dietary cholesterol intake are counteracted by the organs such as the liver, which will increase or decrease production of cholesterol to keep blood cholesterol levels constant.

Cholesterol testing

It is recommended by the American Heart Association to test cholesterol every 5 years for people aged 20 years or older.

A blood sample after 12-hour fasting is taken by a doctor or a home cholesterol-monitoring device to determine a lipoprotein profile. This measures total cholesterol, LDL (bad) cholesterol, HDL (good) cholesterol, and triglycerides.

It is recommended to have cholesterol tested more frequently than 5 years if a person has total cholesterol of 200 mg/dL or more, or if a man over age 45 or a woman over age 50 has HDL (good) cholesterol less than 40 mg/dL, or there exist other risk factors for heart disease and stroke.