Work With Your Doctor to Manage Your Risk Factors
High cholesterol is one of many risk factors for heart disease. A risk factor is a condition or behavior that increases your risk of a disease. It can also be a warning sign. If your cholesterol is high, it's important to talk to your doctor about lowering it.
Family history is another risk factor that can also be a warning sign. If your parent, brother, or sister had heart disease at an early age, then you are considered to have a family history of early heart disease.* Be sure to let your doctor know whether anyone in your family had early heart disease. It's an important part in assessing your overall risk.
To assess your risk of heart disease, click here.
What Are Your Risk Factors?
Many factors contribute to your chances of having a heart attack or stroke. Some factors are beyond your control. But there are risk factors that you and your doctor can control.
Risk factors you can't control
- Your age
- Family history of early heart disease*
Risk factors you can try to manage
- High LDL (low-density lipoprotein, or "bad") cholesterol
- Low HDL (high-density lipoprotein, or "good") cholesterol
- High triglycerides (a type of fat found in your blood)
- High blood pressure
- Obesity
- Diabetes
- Smoking
Where Should Your Cholesterol Levels Be?
Recommended LDL ("bad") cholesterol levels depend on how many risk factors you have for heart disease or stroke. Your doctor can tell you the numbers you should be aiming for based on your risk. The chart below shows recommended LDL levels for people with different combinations of risk factors.
*Per NCEP guidelines, "early" is defined as under 55 for men and under 65 for women.
What Are Your Chances of Having a Heart Attack or Stroke?
The more risk factors you have, the higher your risk for heart disease. When you have high cholesterol, you could be at more than twice the risk of having a heart attack or stroke than someone who doesn't have high cholesterol.
If you also have high blood pressure, you may be at 3.5 times the risk as someone without either. Add diabetes, and your risk could shoot up to more than 6 times that of the average healthy person.
The good news is that you can do something about high cholesterol and other risk factors for heart disease. Talk to your doctor today.
Use the chart below to see how your risk of heart disease compares to that of the average healthy person.
Remember there are other risk factors that are not included in the chart that can also put you at increased risk.
†Diagram adapted from Kannel WB. Importance of hypertension as a major risk factor in cardiovascular disease. In: Genest J, Koiw E, Kuchel O, Boucher R, Nowaczynski W, Rojo-Ortega JM, eds. Hypertension: Physiopathology and Treatment. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill; 1977:888-910.
Risk shown above is compared with the baseline risk for a 40-year-old male nonsmoker with total cholesterol of 185 mg/dL, SBP of 120 mm Hg, no glucose intolerance, ECG-LVH negative, and a probability of developing cardiovascular disease of 15/1000 (or 1.5%) in 8 years.