High Cholesterol Level Risks

Are We Aware Of High Cholesterol Levels?

Experts say that people don’t take high cholesterol risks seriously enough. According to the CDC, in 2005 almost a quarter of American adults said they hadn’t had their cholesterol checked in the last five years.

One problem is that high cholesterol doesn’t cause symptoms that make people pay attention.

“People naturally respond more to medical conditions that cause symptoms”, says Nathan D Wong, PhD, fellow of the American College of Cardiology and director of the Heart Disease Prevention Program at the University of California, Irvine. SInce you won’t feel your rising cholesterol levels, you won’t go to the doctor about it.

By the same token, people may be less likely to stick to treatment for high cholesterol than they would be for a painful condition.

“People on cholesterol-lowering medicine don’t feel any better”, says Sperling. “It’s not like taking a painkiller for an aching knee, where you know it’s working”. As a result, people may be less likely to follow their treatment plan over the long term, Sperling says.

Also, high cholesterol risks are usually not immediate. The damage accumulates over years and decades – high cholesterol in your 20s and 30s can take its toll in your 50s and 60s. Because the effects take time, many people don’t feel real urgency in treating it. They feel they can just deal with it later.

“Unfortunately, I think that many people are too casual about their high cholesterol”, says Adolph Hutter MD, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “They ignore it for years and it only gets their attention when they actually develop vascular disease”.