What Increases Your Risk
Some things that increase
your risk for
are things you can change, but some are
not. It's important to lower your risk as much as possible.
Things you can change include:
- Eating foods high in
saturated fat, trans fat, and cholesterol.
- Being overweight.
- Not being active every day.
- Smoking.
Each of these things can raise your LDL, lower your HDL, or both.
Taking certain medicines can raise your cholesterol, too.
Things you cannot change include:
- . If high cholesterol
runs in your family, you may have it, and it may be harder to treat.
- Age and gender. After age 20, cholesterol levels
naturally rise. In men, cholesterol levels often level off after
age 50. In women, cholesterol levels stay fairly low until
. After that, they rise to about the same
level as in men.