How Does High Cholesterol Harm Your Health?

Did you know that there are over 13,000 different diseases in the world? Not taking care of your health can cause you to have a much higher risk for many of these diseases. Health conditions that put you at risk for diseases are called “risk factors”. One of those risk factors is high cholesterol. Cholesterol is a fat-like substance found in the cells of your body. It’s needed to make hormones, vitamin D and other substances your body needs. However, too much can lead to diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke and more. Find out why you should keep your cholesterol low and how having good health helps you live longer and better!

What Is Cholesterol?

Cholesterol is not something that is bad. In fact, cholesterol (healthy cholesterol) is good for you! This is a fatty substance that your liver makes that helps thousands of bodily function work properly. Cholesterol helps build cell membranes, nerve sheaths and helps your brain function. It also helps hormone production and helps you to metabolize vitamins and minerals. You need cholesterol to survive. Lipoproteins in your body remove excess cholesterol from you blood and take it to your liver.

Lipoproteins do this because too much cholesterol can clog up your body and prevent it from performing like it is meant to. Your body makes cholesterol, but you can also get it from the foods you eat. Foods such as meat, eggs, and dairy products contain high amounts of cholesterol. You can lower high cholesterol if you instead choose foods such as oats, whole grains, beans, nuts, vegetable oils, fruits (apples, grapes, strawberries), soy, fish and fiber foods.

High Cholesterol Can Harm Your Health

Some studies show that about 1 in 6 Americans have high cholesterol. Although high cholesterol may seem like no big deal, it can actually harm your health. If you have too much cholesterol, plaque begins to build up in your arteries, which restricts your blood flow. This plaque is hard and can clog your arteries so much that it is almost like a blocked pipe. When it comes to blood flow, this can be a serious health risk. Reduced blood flow can easily lead to problems such as heart attack and stroke, especially if your blood flow is restricted for long periods of time.

Your blood carries oxygen and nutrients with it. When that blood flow is restricted, your heart doesn’t get enough blood or oxygen, which causes it to become weak. Your organs, muscles and other tissues also won’t get the nutrients they need to stay healthy and functioning. Your best option is to reduce foods with cholesterol and seek medical weight loss help.

Medical Weight Loss

When you are trying to lose weight and get healthier, the amount of diets and “miracle fixes” can overwhelm you. Many people start dieting and exercising more as a New Years resolution each year. In fact, dieting and exercising more are amongst the top resolutions of people. Sadly, about 80% of those people give up on their dieting goals by February. Why? Dieting and getting healthier can be hard! It’s even harder when you don’t know how to do it. We provide our patients the help they need to succeed, whether their goal is to lose weight, exercise more, become more flexible, or simply be healthier to relieve aches and pains.

Choosing a medically-tested and supervised plan allows you to rest assured that you will lose weight without putting yourself at risk for further health complications. With our medical weight loss, a medical doctor checks in with you regularly to see if your weight is on track and if you are meeting your nutritional requirements to stay healthy.

Seek Help for Better Health

When you seek help for getting healthier, you are actually the one that is helped. The best way to get healthy is to have help doing it. Patients can struggle for many years with ailments that are diet-related simply because they don’t have the guidance to change their situation the right way. Whether high cholesterol or some other ailment is making you sick, we can help. Changing your diet will help you high cholesterol and can get it under control. We can help high cholesterol and help you meet weight goals through a customized diet and exercise plan. We can tailor this to your lifestyle and in accordance with any medical needs or ailments you have.

You also benefit from:

• Recommendations when you hit a plateau
• Information on how to be healthier and how to continually lower your cholesterol
• Constant support from our team to keep you motivated
• Cutting-edge treatments that can help reduce hunger and curb cravings for foods that lead to high cholesterol
• Regular checkups to ensure you are getting healthier each week and month
• Changing your lifestyle so you can extend your life through the years
• Overall better health and wellness from reducing your high cholesterol

Live Longer through Diet and Exercise

It’s no secret that diet and exercise can help make you healthier. Diet and exercise generally equates to losing weight. Losing weight can help you live longer because your body can run its functions smoother without all the unnecessary fat that can clog up your system. Your body needs all of the vital nutrients to stay healthy which include: carbohydrates, fats, protein, water, vitamins and minerals. You only get all of those through a healthy diet. If you have proper nutrition, your body functions run smoothly, you have fewer ailments, and you are capable of doing more as the years go by.

The American Heart Association recommends receiving at least 150 minutes of physical activity each week to stay healthy and live longer. You can do this by breaking those minutes up into 5 days of 30 minutes of exercising or even several 10-minute segments through each day. If you commit to exercising more and eating a nutritious diet, you will see a difference in your weight, your skin, your mood, with your ailments, and how you feel throughout each day.

Reduce Your High Cholesterol

Whether your goal is to reduce your high cholesterol or to simply eat better, you are making an investment that can extend your life. Who wouldn’t want to live longer? We can help you get on the path to a healthier life and one that has fewer ailments, aches and pain, or chronic problems that are getting in your way. To find out more about how we can help you be healthier, call Texas Spine & Sports Therapy Center today at (512) 806-0015 for your free consultation. A healthier life is just one call away!