Diagnosis of High Cholesterol - Health Channel

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Diagnosis of High Cholesterol |

More significant than cholesterol numbers is the lifestyle of the patient for understanding them. Dr. Rosendo Collazo, Internal Medicine Physician with Baptist Health Primary Care, explains sedentarism and smoking are the main factors to be addressed.
He describes the cholesterol profile has two components: the good component is HDL and the bad component, LDL. He explains the LDL numbers should be as low as possible.
He affirms the more cardiovascular risks the patient has, the lower the LDL number should be. If someone has coronary diseases or diabetes, that number needs to be even lower.

Transcript

So we’re gonna talk a little bit more specifically about the chronic condition of high cholesterol we get our cholesterol checked typically once a year that’s what’s recommended to happen and then all these numbers come out LDL HDL triglycerides dr. grey ah so can you walk us through what those numbers mean and what are the significance of those numbers okay so first let me tell you that the importance of those numbers is in the context of who the patient is absolutely so it’s very important for the patient to understand that it doesn’t matter if your LDL is a certain percentage off where it should be and I’ll get into that if if your 30% over your ideal body weight sedentary and smoking those things are principal factors that need to be addressed so in that situation it would be more important those numbers matter more if the sedentary patient the smoker then the 30% higher matters more correct along with those social factors as lifestyle issues so with respect to the actual profile the lipid profile as we say the cholesterol profile there are several components and generally we categorize things into the good component and the bad components and the good component is the HDL which is the high density lipoprotein which actually can be a positive factor in terms of cardiovascular risk when it is high and so we want that number to be higher whereas the bad components are the non HDL components which is the LDL the low-density lipoprotein and it’s relatives along with circulating fats or triglycerides and those numbers we want to be as low as possible there is no fixed number for the bad component as to what is normal and what is not normal it depends on the patient’s so the more cardiovascular risks the patient has the lower that number should be when someone has already known coronary artery disease or diabetes that number needs to be even lower so it’s it’s really tailored to the patient you

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