Cholesterol is one of the major risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as heart attacks, cardiac chest pain (angina) and other circulatory diseases. Other modifiable risk factors are hypertension, smoking and diabetes.
Cardiovascular disease is still the leading cause of death in world, although the mortality rate has halved over the past 20-25 years. It has been shown that over 50 percent of heart attack risks can be attributed to cholesterol.
The reduction of cardiovascular diseases is largely due to an improvement in lifestyle and lowering of cholesterol. People also smoke much less and are exercising more than 25 years ago. In a recent study which examined the relative importance of changes in treatment and risk factors, nearly 40 percent of the decline in the mortality rate can be attributed to the decreasing cholesterol levels in the population. These changes can almost entirely be attributed to changes in dietary habits.
Two manifestations of lipid disorders
We are talking about two different manifestations of lipid disorders, both of which represent an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. The first is dominated by high LDL cholesterol. A typical example is the so-called familial hypercholesterolemia. It has been found effective preventive medicine against elevated LDL-cholesterol.
The second manifestation is elevated triglycerides combined with low protective HDL-cholesterol (“good” cholesterol). LDL cholesterol is usually not elevated in this condition, but the state is still a major CVD risk. Triglycerides are fats that we ingest in food and transported in the body especially in apolipoprotein B, that is the “bad” part of lipoproteins. They are composed of glycerol with three fatty acids linked to itself. The amount of triglycerides is also a measure of how likely you are to suffer from arteriosclerosis. Therefore, there is a limit of 2 millimoles per liter, which should not be exceeded. Triglycerides increase especially in overweight so-called abdominal obesity and occurs frequently in type 2 diabetes.
