What Are High Cholesterol Symptoms?

If you are wondering about high cholesterol symptoms, the answer may surprise you: Most often there are no symptoms. But you ignore your high cholesterol, it may eventually lead to serious heart disease.

Heart disease has now surpassed cancer as the number one cause of death in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. High cholesterol is one of the important components risk factors for heart disease. Unfortunately, no symptoms are associated with high cholesterol. So, despite feeling healthy, you could still have dangerously high cholesterol levels and not even know it.

So, How Can I Tell If I Have High Cholesterol?

The only way to find out if you have high cholesterol is through a cholesterol test. A cholesterol test is a blood test that will look at the key lipids, or fats, that are in the blood, such as:

• LDL
• HDL
• Triglycerides
• Total cholesterol

If your cholesterol levels are not within the normal ranges, your healthcare provider may recommend a low-fat diet, exercise, medication, or a combination of these. The current guidelines recommend that everyone over the age of 20 should get their cholesterol checked at least once every five years. However, if you have a family history of high cholesterol, or you have been diagnosed with a chronic condition, such as diabetes or heart disease, you may consider checking your cholesterol more frequently. In some cases, high cholesterol is found by accident at a routine checkup –- and many people are surprised to be diagnosed with high cholesterol when they are otherwise feeling healthy.

Other Ways To Tell If You're At Risk For High Cholesterol

Knowing your risk of having high cholesterol is also important. Some risk factors for having high cholesterol are things that we can change, such as diet and exercise. However, some factors we cannot change (such as diseases or age). If you have any of the conditions listed below, you are at risk of having high cholesterol and should get checked if you have not already done so:

• Sedentary lifestyle (lack of exercise)
• Poor diet
• Smoking
• Certain medications
• Age (the older you are, the more you are at risk)
• Family history of high cholesterol
• Certain diseases (diabetes, certain thyroid gland conditions)

  What Happens If I Don't Get My Cholesterol Checked?

  Since many people feel healthy when their cholesterol is high, they may ignore it anyway. However, this is not a wise decision, since persistently high cholesterol levels could lead to dangerous complications. If you decide to ignore your cholesterol levels by either not getting your cholesterol checked or ignoring your high cholesterol, you could develop heart disease.

  When cholesterol levels are high, it can deposit on inflamed vessels and form a waxy plaque. This process, which is referred to as atherosclerosis, can build up in vessels and cause vessels to become partially blocked. As a result, a heart attack or stroke can occur due to the vessel becoming completely obstructed or the plaque breaking off and moving to another area of the body.

  In some cases, people may not find out that they have high cholesterol levels until they have had their first heart attack or stroke.

  _Sources:

  Third Report of the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) Expert Panel on Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Cholesterol in Adults (PDF), July 2004, The National Institutes of Heath: The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

  CDC. Deaths: Leading Causes for 2002. National Vital Statistics Reports 2005;53(17).