When you think of cholesterol your mind sees nothing but heart trouble. High cholesterol levels are feared as the number one cause for heart attacks.
You may believe that high cholesterol is a sign of imminent danger of heart disease and stroke. Yet, neither this is true, nor will this article tell you how to fill a prescription for a powerful drug to change your lab results.
High cholesterol? Why?
The causes of high cholesterol have been researched thoroughly and although we are still discovering new scientific findings we know which common lifestyle errors greatly contribute to its increase. Smoking, chronic stress, lack of antioxidants, and poor eating habits are on the forefront.
Cholesterol is an aging marker. It cannot tell you your birth year, but it can tell you how functional your body is. The relationship is simple: the functionally older the person the higher the bad cholesterol and the poorer the cardiovascular profile. Blood numbers are worth watching. They not only can tell your body performance, but also your functional age, your overall health and fitness level.
Lifestyle habits can be read in blood work
Look around! Many of your friends are in their forties. Some are happy, healthy, and fit. Some are overweight, stressed, and already on prescription drugs. Have a chat with them and find out their cholesterol levels. Soon you will discover that it is not their biological age, but the lifestyle habits that define their blood parameters. Those who have high LDL (bad) cholesterol levels are aging faster than their friends with low and normal-LDL levels. In other words those with normal cholesterol levels figured out an anti-aging lifestyle.
In North America 70% of men & 60% of women are overweight or obese. There is a strong relationship between obesity and lab numbers. And although weight loss is much harder to achieve with advancing age, healthy weight loss has been one of the better methods for lowering cholesterol, regardless of biological age. On average people with normal weight enjoy a much higher level of health then their overweight counterparts. They are less prone to diabetes, heart disease, joint problems, and age-related degenerative diseases.
Beware of pills to lower cholesterol
There are many cholesterol-lowering drugs and supplements on the market. They do what they promise: lower cholesterol. But they do nothing else. They neither reverse your functional age, prevent diabetes, repair joints, nor do they help you lose weight.
What’s worse the minute you stop the pills your high cholesterol comes back up. Cholesterol-lowering pills help you achieve better lab numbers, but they also help you avoid understanding the causes behind your declining health. Be assured of this: unless you change your lifestyle habits you will remain on a fast track towards accelerated aging.
To know why low fat and low cholesterol is bad for your health read my recent book “The Cholesterol Trap!“
