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The well known dangers
of high cholesterol, due to the blockage of blood trying to
flow through a clot or narrowed arteries often results in
serious tissue damage, triggering heart attacks, strokes,
and other cardiovascular problems.
A certain amount or number of cholesterol level is necessary
for your body to function properly, and cholesterol is utilized
by your body’s cells as it travels through the blood,
assisting with functions like producing estrogen, vitamin
D and testosterone. Cholesterol resembles a waxy substance,
and essentially is found in two sources, either by digesting
it through meat products or dairy, or producing cholesterol
in our livers – and the body tends to produce most of
the cholesterol it requires at any given time. The dangers
of high cholesterol occur when excess chunks of the fat-like
substance begin floating around in our blood. This serious
problem with potentially hazardous effects to our health actually
strikes millions of people worldwide.
The preventative steps to ward off the dangers of high cholesterol
should begin when a person reaches 20 years old, and every
adult of this age and over should get a blood test annually
to determine the health of their cholesterol levels. Excess
cholesterol can form on the inner artery walls throughout
our bodies, forming a type of plaque or scar tissue, which
is known as atherosclerosis. As this plaque hardens up, it
narrows the artery walls and effectively reduces or even stops
blood flow. Sometimes it even causes the hard and inflexible
artery to tear. The body responds by forming a blood clot
as its natural response to repairing the tear in the artery,
but should the clot block blood flow, it can result in a stroke
or other life threatening symptoms.
The trouble with high cholesterol is that you can’t
really see or feel the dangers of high cholesterol. The disease
of high cholesterol itself doesn’t even show any particular
symptoms – it does its greatest harm by causing other
diseases like strokes – that statistics show take a
person’s life just over every thirty seconds. And that
is certainly one of the most devastating and traumatic dangers
of high cholesterol.
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