Heart Disease Prevention - Why Total Cholesterol Reading May Be Misleading?

Total blood cholesterol is a measure of the total amount of cholesterol in the blood that includes both LDL and HDL cholesterol. Even if the total cholesterol is in the desirable category, it is possible that one may have unhealthy levels of HDL (too low) and LDL (too high). So it is also important to look at the individual HDL and LDL numbers, as well as the ratio. Find out more at:

Heart Disease Prevention - Why Total Cholesterol Reading May Be Misleading?

Chocolate Might Help You Lower Your Cholesterol!

Who does not like chocolate? People, especially ladies, tend to eat more chocolate when they were in bad mood. But many reports had linked eating chocolate to weight gain that might lead to many medical disorders including diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and stroke.

In a paper published on May 26, 2010 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College in Beijing argued that eating chocolate could help reduce the cholesterol levels. Their theory, however, only applied to people already had risk factors for heart disease and who consumed in modest amounts.

After analyzing 8 trials involving 215 people, they found that eating cocoa would reduce levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or bad cholesterol by about 6 mg/dL and cut the total cholesterol by the same amount. Further analysis showed that only people who ate small amounts of cocoa (an amount containing 260 milligrams of polyphenols or less) had their cholesterol levels lowered, and no effect was shown in people who ate more.

Polyphenols are antioxidant compounds found in fruits, vegetables, chocolate and red wine. A 1.25-ounce bar of milk chocolate contains about 300 milligrams of polyphenols.

While healthy people did not benefit from consuming cocoa, people with heart disease risk factors like diabetes had their LDL cholesterol and total cholesterol level reduced by around 8 mg/dL each.

However, researchers suggested more rigorous randomized trials with longer follow-up should be carried out in future research so as to resolve the uncertainty about the clinical effectiveness.

In fact, several studies suggesting that chocolate might be good for the health had been conducted before. A study on 19,300 people, which was released in March 2010, suggested that people who consumed the most chocolate had lower blood pressure and were less likely to suffer stroke or heart attach over the next 10 years.

Have People Strived Hard to Lower Their Bad Cholesterol?

When people’s bad cholesterol or low-density lipoprotein (LDL) is high, they actually have a much higher risk of developing high blood pressure, stroke and even heart disease. As such, it is advisable for them to lower their LDL level.

A recent study by researchers from the University of California, San Francisco showed that over the last decade, the number of patients who have lowered their LDL to the recommended level has nearly doubled in 9 countries, namely Brazil, Canada, France, Mexico, the Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan and the United States.

Published in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation on June 22, 2009, the findings revealed that patients in the United States, Brazil, France and South Korea had accepted a combination of medical treatment and lifestyle changes to improve their bad cholesterol.

In the study, close to 10,000 people with an average age of 62 were surveyed. The number of patients, who had successfully reached their target LDL level, was found to rise from 38 percent to 73 percent over the last 10 years.

On the other hand, only 30 percent of the high-risk patients, who have existing coronary artery disease or risk factors such as obesity, diabetes or smoking, had successfully reached their target LDL of 70mg per deciliter or less.

Although there is still some room for improvement, particularly in very high-risk patients, the results did indicate that LDL-lowering therapy has been applied much more successfully than it had been a decade ago.

The target LDL level in the United States depends on how many risk factors are present in the patient.

For patients without coronary artery disease, diabetes, or other cardiovascular risk factors, the ideal LDL is 160 mg/dL or less. People without either coronary artery disease or diabetes but with at least 2 other risk factors should keep their LDL level to less than 130 mg/dL

Patients who have cardiovascular diseases or diabetes should keep their bad cholesterol level no higher than 100 mg/dL, and should try to maintain a level lower than 70 mg/dL if they also have other risk factors.

Do Children Have High Blood Cholesterol?

About 1 in 5 Singaporean have high blood cholesterol, as reported by a 2004 National Health Survey. Perhaps, these people should be blamed for their love of artery-clogging foods. In fact, some of these people are just teenagers. For example, there is a 13 year-old pupil has a cholesterol level of 320 mg/dl, will you believe?

The American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines stipulated that the acceptable cholesterol level for children and teenagers aged 2 to 19 should be below 170 mg/dl, while the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol should be kept under 110 mg/dl. LDL is also known as the bad cholesterol that increases the risk of cholesterol deposits within the walls of blood vessels.

It is not uncommon that children or teenagers, like adults, can have high blood cholesterol. As no official figures are available presently on the number of children with high cholesterol, not many parents are aware of the problem.

High blood cholesterol can be a silent killer because the bad effects do not show immediately but much later in life. Therefore, many parents do not realize the danger behind this. In fact, it has been linked to coronary heart disease and stroke. The earlier a person has high cholesterol, the more health problems he or she will encounter in the future.

In general, high blood cholesterol level is due to excessive consumption of foods high in cholesterol, saturated and trans fats. Nevertheless, genes and family history could also be the cause for high cholesterol in young patients. According to the figures provided by Health Promotion Board (HPB), it affects 9.5 percent of Singaporean children.

A recently study, published by National University Hospital (NUH), on 250 severely obese Singaporean children revealed that more than one-third of these children had high LDL cholesterol levels.

Does this mean that all parents must send their kids for cholesterol screen? Not really, parents should start by watching their child’s diet from the time they were young.

Parents should limit their children’s cholesterol intake to no more than 300 mg per day and saturated and trans fats intake to less than 10 and 1 percent of their total daily calorie intake respectively. These recommendations are for children aged 2 and above.

Moreover, parents should encourage their children to adopt positive healthy practices, such as regular exercise and healthy diet as these can help prevent obesity and other chronic conditions like diabetes later in their life.