Coronary heart disease, or CHD, is a chronic condition that begins with plaques, or deposits of cholesterol and fats, inside the walls of the arteries that bring blood to your heart. As the arteries continue to narrow, your heart is deprived of oxygen and other vital nutrients and you develop full-blown CHD. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, or NHLBI, says high blood cholesterol is a major risk factor for CHD and heart attack.
Where It Comes From
Your liver produces about ¾ of the cholesterol in your bloodstream, while the other 25 percent comes from the foods you eat, says the American Heart Association. Choose a diet low in cholesterol and saturated fats to reduce total cholesterol levels. If your parents or grandparents had high cholesterol, you may have a genetic predisposition to the same condition, says MayoClinic.com.
Types
Because of its fatty consistency, cholesterol doesn't dissolve in your blood. Instead, it's carried through the bloodstream and to your body cells by lipoproteins. Low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, is nicknamed "bad" cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein, or HDL, is considered "good" cholesterol. Total cholesterol is the sum of the HDL, LDL, triglyceride fats and Lp(a) cholesterol, a genetic variation of LDL, according to the American Heart Association.
Effects
Extra LDL cholesterol in your blood can slowly accumulate inside the arterial walls to create plaques and atherosclerosis. Plaque can break off and travel through the bloodstream to your heart, causing a heart attack. While HDL cholesterol protects against heart disease, experts don't agree on how it works. Many believe it carries excess cholesterol through the bloodstream to the liver, where it can be excreted from the body. Others think HDL cholesterol may remove cholesterol from the plaques on the vessel walls, reversing atherosclerosis, according to the American Heart Association.
Considerations
High blood cholesterol doesn't cause any symptoms, so you won't know you're developing atherosclerosis and CHD until the condition has progressed. Your doctor can order blood tests to measure the amount of total, LDL and HDL cholesterol in your blood. The NHLBI says your total cholesterol level should be lower than 200 mg/dL, and your LDL cholesterol is less than 100 mg/dL. You can reduce your risk for heart disease by keeping your HDL levels above 60 mg/dL, but values below 40 mg/dL increase the chance that you'll develop CHD.
Prevention/Solution
While you can't change your family history, you can and should modify other factors that increase the chances high cholesterol will cause CHD. These include obesity, smoking, poor diet, a sedentary lifestyle, high blood pressure and diabetes, according to MayoClinic.com. Your doctor may also prescribe cholesterol-lowering medications if lifestyle changes alone don't do the job.
