High Cholesterol Treatment
High cholesterol treatment requires just few steps after it has been properly diagnosed. It includes some changes in the diet and the lifestyle. Some factors that contribute high cholesterol like age, sex, and heredity can’t be changed but other factors that contribute, can be easily considered under control. High cholesterol increases the risk of some cardiovascular disease, stroke, and heart attack. There is lot of confusion about how cholesterol works in every person.
The treatment is generally same but varies in some aspect to the women as they tend to have high cholesterol after menopause. The basic treatment for both the gender of the society is same, that is, to have a proper diet, maintaining or losing weight, and doing regular exercise, but most of all following proper medication. People suffering from certain disease like blood pressure, diabetes, heart attack, etc may immediately start medication as they are at high risk of attaining high cholesterol levels.
Proper Diet for High Cholesterol Treatment
As we already know that diet plays an important role in curing majority of diseases. For high cholesterol treatment people should avoid saturated food like red meat, eggs, poultry, cheese, ice cream, and whole milk dairy products, in their meals. Intake of Trans fats found in some processed food items like chips, snacks, stick margarine, etc should also be reduced. They may have some unsaturated fats, which are good for cholesterol and are found in some cold water fish like salmon, sardines, tuna, etc should be consumed, but in lower quantity.
Calories are the most important thing to be looked upon as what we eat ads up to your calories. So one should know how much calorie is required for them to lead a healthy life.
Maintaining or Losing Weight for High Cholesterol Treatment
From high cholesterol point of view, obese or over weight persons tends to increase their low density lipoprotein (LDL) and decrease their high density lipoprotein (HDL), which as a result can cause them increase in blood pressure and some sort of diseases like diabetes, and heart diseases. So it becomes mandatory for them to maintain a healthy weight, as per their height and age.
Regular Exercise for High Cholesterol Treatment
Regular exercise helps to decrease the LDL level and Increase HDL level. Regular exercise helps to burn the extra calorie consumed by our body and maintain the cholesterol level to its normality.
Medications for High Cholesterol Treatment
Some medicines are prescribed by the doctors to decrease the cholesterol level. Medicines like Crestor, Mevacor, Pravachol, Lescol, Zocor, and Lipitor have been proved to have a positive effect in treating cholesterol level. These medicines works by creating a wall against the enzymes that creates cholesterol level to grow. If a patient has a risk of some heart disease, doctors may prescribe statin in the inception of the treatment.
There are some alternative treatments for maintaining cholesterol level. Some herbs and spices like garlic, ginger, guggul, and policosanol that are used from the ancient times to treat this ailment. Thus high cholesterol treatment is in the reach of every people.
Treatment for High Cholesterol Levels
High cholesterol levels increase heart diseases risk factors, taking treatment for high cholesterol is therefore recommended in order to lower these risk factors. Different people will react positively to different treatments and therefore you should consult a doctor before getting in any kind of cholesterol treatment.
There are many cholesterol treatments and the doctor will help you go for the one that suites you best. While some people just require improving on their diet and lifestyles, others might be required to go an extra mile of finding conventional medicine to help treat their cholesterol. Others might be required to combine both methods in order to have positive results in lowering cholesterol levels.
When talking of treatment for high cholesterol levels, there are two main things that you can apply and that are medication and lifestyle changes. In other cases you might be required to use both methods of treatment. Treating high cholesterol with medicine comes after lifestyle change has not changed the situation. It is also mostly for those people with extremely high heart diseases risk factors.
Cholesterol medications have side effects just like any other medication; this makes many people hate to take it. This is made more serious by the fact that high cholesterol does not have side effects; however you should understand that the results are worse than just noting the side effects. You should therefore have discipline in taking you cholesterol lowering medication. Most of the commonly used cholesterol medicines include niacin and statins.
Medication is dependent of the level of your risk factors, age and possible side effects of the medication. When statins is used as treatment for high cholesterol levels, it is aimed at lowering LDL by preventing the liver from producing cholesterol. It is also capable of helping in absorption of cholesterol from the arteries and therefore reversing coronary heart disease. Bile resin are another type of medicines that are used, they help the liver to produce a lot of bile acid and lots of cholesterol is used in absorbing the acid, this hence reduces cholesterol indirectly.
The other treatment for high cholesterol levels is lifestyle changes which works in many people. It includes taking a low cholesterol diet that aims at lowering your bad cholesterol as well as boosting your good cholesterol.
A good cholesterol diet should include omega 3 fatty acids, both mono and poly unsaturated fats and fibre rich foods. These help in lowering your cholesterol levels and they are also easy and affordable to get. You should also aim at lowering your weight in case you have heavy weight; you can achieve this by eating a low calorie diet and doing lots of physical exercises. Losing weight helps in reduction of triglycerides levels in the blood as well as lowering blood pressure.
Taking physical exercises also helps in boosting HDL cholesterol levels; therefore you should be active in doing exercises as it has more than one advantage in your cholesterol lowering.
Lifestyle changes in treatment for high cholesterol levels also require you to quit smoking in case you are a smoker. Smoking is known to increase LDL cholesterol levels and lowering HDL cholesterol. In case you are an alcoholic, you should stop taking alcohol in large amounts. Moderate alcohol consumption is required as alcohol is known to boost HDL cholesterol levels but once taken in excess; it increases your triglycerides putting you under higher risk factors for heart diseases.
Cholesterol Treatment
Let us face it – everybody loves nutrient that tastes good. It is an added bonus if that great-tasting food for thought can also be good for your health. Did you understand that implant sterols have been analyzed for over 50 years for their cholesterol-lowering power? These chemical compounds bring to lower total cholesterol levels by barricading the number of cholesterol that is assimilated in the body’s digestive tube.
Animal cholesterol and plant sterols are alike in composition, which admits plant sterols to “play a trick on” the physical structure into serving them instead of cholesterol. Sooner or later this can lead to lower total blood line cholesterol levels. You could be improving your cholesterol level each time you consume!
Plant sterols are part of a plant’s plasma membrane or structure. They’re by nature detected in many fruits, veggies, nuts, cums, and breakfast food grain in small amounts. Unluckily, in order to draw the rewards of plant sterols’ cholesterol-lowering welfare, you’d require consuming many these foods. For instance, in order to get 2 gram of plant steroid alcohol, you require to consume 100 pounds of veggies! Thankfully, plant sterols have been expanded to a lot of foods, including oleomargarine, mayonnaise, orange juice, potables, and snack foods.
The suggested amount of plant sterols to better your cholesterol is two portions per day with meals – an absolute goal of 800 mg per day. Most products that are bastion with plant sterols meet this testimonial, but make certain you study the nutrition label.
Reducing the Risk of Disease with High Cholesterol Medication
The health risks related to high cholesterol levels will lead to heart attacks and dangerous cardiovascular ailments. Heart disease and avoiding it, is the reason behind taking the high cholesterol medication. For most, they prefer to reduce the intake of high content cholesterol foods. Nevertheless, the diet can at times, be totally ineffective as a cholesterol reduction treatment. Thus, this gives rise to use the high cholesterol medication.
The reason behind the ineffective results of the diet and exercise can be because of genetic reasons. If the lifestyle changes that you have made do not create the successful cholesterol reduction, then it would be about the perfect time to take the high cholesterol medication.
When to Start
The very first step that physicians advise their patient when diagnosed with high cholesterol levels is to take the right diet and exercise. This means reducing food with high saturated fats and fitness programs that will burn fat. The usual term for this treatment would b around three months at the most. If at the end of the testing period you still have the same levels of cholesterol, then the high cholesterol medication is advised to be taken.
For some doctors, the presence of medical records that showed cardiovascular diseases will lead them to prescribe high cholesterol medication. Any history of heart disease in the family should be properly disclosed to the doctor to allow him to determine the extent of the high cholesterol medication that should be given.
Things to Consider
Before you begin the treatment process with the high cholesterol medication, you should be aware of any expected side effects. Liver problems, digestive problems, muscle pain, headaches and tingling or numbness are common side effects that have been observed on those taking the high cholesterol medications. Each side effect would depend on the type of drug that you are taking.
These side effects are reasons why you can delay taking the high cholesterol medication. If you are not directly suffering from cardiovascular diseases, it would be better to refrain from the high cholesterol medication and start with lifestyle changes first. Males aged below 35 and women who are not yet in the menopausal stage are advised to use the cholesterol medication only if the lifestyle change fails to succeed with the cholesterol reduction.
The statins are only one of the high cholesterol medications in the market. However, the side effects of this medicine are quite high in the occurrence. If you cannot stand the side effects, then perhaps you can switch to another high cholesterol medication. Your way of living is the best way to control and reduce the high cholesterol levels. The high cholesterol medications should not form a frequent part of your lifestyle.
Side Effects of Popular Drugs
There are many drugs in the market that will effectively decrease the bad cholesterol in the system. One of the medicines that are noted to decrease the level of cholesterol is Zocor, which carries the generic name of Simvastatin. This is a known effective cholesterol medication. One of the cholesterol medication side effects related to this drug is light sensitivity.
Light sensitivity is one of the unique cholesterol medication side effects. This would mean that in going out, you need to take certain precautions. You can wear sunscreens or any clothing that will protect you from too much light. If the light sensitivity is a side effect that you want to get rid of, you must switch to other cholesterol medications.
When it comes to the normal cholesterol medication side effects, it has been noted that muscle pain is present. The statins are the drugs that usually result to the muscle discomfort. For some, the muscle pain that is part of the cholesterol medication side effects should be reported to the doctor immediately. It might seem a simple discomfort but unnoticeable to you are internal kidney problems.
The kidney problems that are associated to the cholesterol medication may also result to fever, vomiting, fatigue, and dark urine excretion. For those that experience these cholesterol medication side effects, you need to consult your physician so as not to worsen the conditions. The kidney is a vital organ of the body and if damage with medication it could be potentially fatal.
Your doctor will be your best ally in determining the extent of the cholesterol medication side effects. These medical professionals will have an idea if the effects will harm you permanently or temporarily. If you cannot handle the cholesterol medication side effects, your doctor will be prescribing a brand new cholesterol lowering drug.