When there is too much cholesterol in your blood, the excess can become trapped on the walls of your arteries, causing atherosclerosis, and restricting the blood flow to the heart, says Gary L. Balady, M.D., director of preventive cardiology at Boston Medical Center and professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine. Anyone can develop high blood cholesterol, regardless of age, race, gender, or ethnic background. There are two types of cholesterol that affect your risk of heart disease. High-density lipoprotein, or HDL, is the good cholesterol, responsible for removing cholesterol from artery walls and carrying it to the liver for processing. A high level of HDL, coupled with a low level of LDL, is healthy.
Regular exercise can raise it by two to five points, but there is no dramatic increase.
Estrogen replacement therapy in postmenopausal women has been shown to raise HDL levels by up to 15 percent. Medications can also raise HDL, but Balady says none are currently being prescribed to do so. Lowering LDL is especially important in people with other risk factors for heart disease, including a family history, cigarette smoking, hypertension, and diabetes. A person's total blood cholesterol level, determined through a simple blood test, is given as a certain number of milligrams of cholesterol per deciliter of blood. The goal then is to lower the LDL level to below 160.