The cholesterol in your body is a waxy, fat-like substance that occurs naturally within membranes throughout the entire body. Although there is a lot of concern surrounding the existence of cholesterol, the truth is that some cholesterol is actually beneficial to your body by helping you to produce various hormones, vitamin D, and even the acids that help to digest fat. Unfortunately, when too much cholesterol is allowed to build up in your system, your arteries can become narrower, leading to strokes, heart attacks, and disease.
You can check your cholesterol levels using a HDL cholesterol chart and a simple blood test. This test will measure the total amount of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol in your body. From there, your health care provider should help you interpret the results and make a plan to improve your health.
Using A HDL Cholesterol Chart To Check Good Cholesterol
When you're having your cholesterol checked, you may use a HDL cholesterol chart to determine your levels of good cholesterol. However, you could be wondering why HDL cholesterol is considered to be good in the first place. The answer is that the HDL cholesterol in your system is dense when compared to other particles, which is why it is called "high density".
Experts believe that this high density lipoprotein may act in a number of helpful ways which could actually end up reducing your chances of suffering from numerous problems – including heart disease. For example, HDL cholesterol helps to seek out and remove LDL (bad) cholesterol from your system. When it finds this LDL cholesterol, HDL recycles it by transporting it back to the liver to be reprocessed.
What's more, high density lipoprotein cholesterol can also conduct maintenance on the inner walls of your blood vessels – repairing the damage that can occur in the first stages of atherosclerosis – which may lead to strokes and heart attacks.
Where Should Your HDL Levels Be?
Of course, using a HDL cholesterol chart without any prior education may not be able to tell you much about whether you're in good shape or not. A lipid panel or cholesterol test will be able to give you more information about your level of HDL cholesterol, but you'll first need to determine what those numbers mean. Generally, HDL cholesterol levels that are above 60 mg per deciliter are high and this is good for your body. On the other hand, if your HDL levels are less than 40 mg per deciliter, then they will be classed as quite low, which isn't so good.
Typically, people who have higher levels of HDL also have lower risk levels for heart disease. Fortunately, if your HDL is low, there are a number of things that you can do to improve your health. For instance, 30 to 60 minutes of aerobic exercise a day can help to improve your HDL, while quitting smoking can also help to improve your good cholesterol levels. At the same time, many doctors recommend keeping to a healthy weight, as this will reduce your risk of heart disease, alongside various other health problems.