High cholesterol cannot be detected by any symptoms. Olga Molchanova, one of the leading researchers of the National Research Center for Treatment and Preventive Medicine, told socialbites.ca about this.
“High cholesterol levels are a sign of metabolic disorders. There are no signs of high cholesterol, so you can only find out its level with the help of tests. Its level should be monitored by people aged 40-50, especially if they have relatives who have had a heart attack and stroke due to atherosclerosis,” he said.
The doctor noted that it is worth taking tests not only for total cholesterol, but also for its fractions: “bad” and “good” cholesterol are low-density and high-density lipoproteins, respectively. “Bad” cholesterol can build up on the walls of blood vessels, causing their lumen to narrow. This increases the risk of stroke and heart attack. “Good” cholesterol works as a carrier of “bad” cholesterol and can even remove it from the vessels. In this case, the “bad” cholesterol is transported to the liver, where it is converted into fatty acids and excreted from the body.
“Sometimes people have high “good” cholesterol. There isn’t enough data yet to say definitively what to do about it. In some cases, it may be a person’s characteristic, ”the doctor explained.