High level of bad cholesterol

Hi everyone,

Im new here, I am 25 years old, Im in the healthy weight area and I have high cholesterol.

I went to my doctor, did my blood test, and the result came out twice as high as the normal level. I dont eat fatty food, or rarely, I dont drink alcohol, i do have a sweet tooth though. He informed me to do a minimum of 30 minutes exercise everyday and it worked, well i still have a higher level then normal but it did go down.

Do any of you know special foods or what to do to keep my cholesterol down knowing that daily i dont eat much, too hot to eat a lot here (cambodia), i do drink cocacola (maybe 1 can a day)...And as it is high season now the hotel in which i am working is very busy so not much time to include an hour of fitness but i do walk around the hotel when not doing any paper work.

Any advice to help lower this triglyceride level?

thank

You may simply have genetically high cholesterol levels.  Many people do.  It's only one 'risk factor' in future health prospects, so try not to worry too much.  If you're a healthy weight, don't smoke, don't drink a lot of alcohol, and if you get regular exercise you're quite likely to live a long and happy life. 

Foods that can bring down cholesterol levels are things like oats and other wholegrain foods - brown rice, wholewheat.  If you replace some of the meat & eggs in your diet with oily fish and pulses (legumes) such as beans and lentils, that's also going to help.  Low-fat dairy products help your body absorb less fat in total... so they're quite a good choice.    If you don't drink any alcohol at all you may find the occasional small glass of red wine is beneficial.  There are special margarines and yoghurts (Benecol is a brand in the UK) that claim to reduce cholesterol but if you can't get hold of those, don't worry.

Hi there!  I also have genetically high cholesterol.  Even when i was like 8 years old...I was scared of eating eggs for 10 years because I thought I might get a heart attack.. He he. I still have high cholesterol, but thankfully my numbers are better (low triglycerides, high HDL and medium LDL).  You can have high cholesterol and not have a problem.  But if you do have high triglyclerides, you might want to limit your refined carb intake.  You can still eat sweets, but eat less of them and get more exercise to burn off some of that sugar so it doesn't get converted into fatty acid chains.  Exercise also helps to boost your HDL levels tremendously, so if you are getting lots of walking in already, that's great-- maybe boost your speed a little?  Add in some vigorous exercise like running or get on the elliptical too.  That will REALLY help.

Cholesterol is not as important as they once thought it was in heart disease risk.  Now they think that inflammation (marked in your blood with certain proteins) is a far greater predictor.  Eat an anti-inflammatory diet, including lots of fruits and veggies and less refined carbs and saturated fats (note I said less, so one coca cola won't kill you if you balance it out with other healthful things) Exercise also decreases inflammation in the body.  

Some great anti-inflammatory foods are:  dark chocolate or non-dutch cocoa powder, acai berry, blueberries, green tea (doesn't mean you can't add honey!), balck and red beans, red wine, spices like cinnamon, cloves, curry, turmeric...good luck!!  

I just got this diagnosis this week, too! But for some reason it's really alarming me, because I am only 28 , I quit smoking almost a year ago, and my blood was taken 3 weeks after I finished my first half marathon! My HDL and my triglycerides are both high.  I wonder how bad it would be if I hadn't made all these lifestyle changes in the last year.

Luckily, I already started counting calories again and training for another half marathon.  But what I'm wondering is how many grams of fat can I consume per meal to be considered low fat?  Is it 15 or less?  Do I need to be counting cholesterol mg on food labels too?

I also have genetically high cholesterol, in my case is caused from a missing molecule.

I just did some tests called APO A and APO B to ck how come the dugs that i used are not working, I can update u on that later on

Anyway because you are so young you shouldn’t worry too much but keep a good diet, try to walk at least 30 mins every day, don’t exceed with alcohol.

Thanks everyone,

In a way im happy to see that im not the only one with this problem and in a nother not really happy... well you know what i mean.

Thanks for all the good tips, i guess it will be a life changing scenario, i am looking forward to the low season comming up to be able to get the time to do some exercise, i do walk around the hotel when i got to check out whats going on.. and actually do longes or calf exercise once i hav passed the security cameras =)

Doctor said that if it doesnt go down then i might have to take the special pills to lower it, but as after a month i managed to get it down im glad i was cleared for that one..

As for alcohol, well i guess i got the intolerance (which developed 2 years ago from my grandma as well).. cant drink alcohol, perhaps a bit of chandi but anything else well i get stomack cramps, cold sweats.. (very weird). I caught that my second year in cambodia.. horrible, 1 month running to the toilet, going to bed with stomack cramps (liek really bad bad menstruation pain).. i did all the tests and they couldnt figure out what it was.... Oups sorry i went a bit off subject... anyway since then i might drink maybe a glass of bear every 2 months or something like that... so im safe on this side =)