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I’ve just had blood work done & my cholesterol levels are good! Should I be worried about clogged arteries?
Can you have clogged arteries, and still have good cholesterol levels?
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#2 written by Laurence W 2 years ago
It depends on your age, diet, and lifestyle
Cholesterol contributes to clogged arteries.
If you have high blood pressure, or react strongly to scary movies or get very “into” video games or action movies, your adrenaline may pump up your blood pressure. Or if you exercise too hard, this can damage the artery walls. So can chemical irritants such as smoke, cocaine, other illegal drugs, alcohol, or trans fats in processed foods.
If your diet has very little in the way of anti-oxidants, then your low density lipoproteins (LDL), can oxidize, and this oxidized LDL gets sucked up by immune cells trying to repair the damaged artery walls. These immune cells can get large from ingested LDL, and functionally act like wedges in the artery walls, splitting them inward, narrowing the interior of the artery, possibly until no blood can pass.
Because of this LDL process, think LDL as LETHAL, and HDL (high density lipoproteins) as HEALTHY. HDL helps move LDL out of the blood stream.
With less LDL, the chance of this is reduced. With low LDL and a diet high in anti-oxidants, the chance of this is extremely low.
My HDL was 37, and my LDL was 137, ok numbers. At age 53 slim and exercising often, I suddenly had massive chest pains, but no heart attack. My heart had barely 7% normal cardiac blood flow. I had two 99% blockages with barely a hairs width of passage for blood to go through, and another dozen blockages of only 80%.
They did an emergency triple bypass the next day. The other blockages were to close, so there was nothing to go around to. They were in a minor panic at 9:00 PM the night before when I had strong chest pains, and moved my surgery up from 10:00 AM to 7:00 AM.
I lived. I am now very careful with my diet, and do not exercise so hard as to get tired or fatigued.
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Yes. The low cholesterol level will reduce the clogging of your arteries, not eliminate it. I was taught that plaque formation and clots generally start with inflammation of the arterial walls; the cholesterol just makes them build up faster.
The cholesterol result should also include the ratio of good and bad cholesterol. LDL which is low density (bad) and HDL which is high density (good). The high density helps to remove the low density from your system. So next time you see your Dr you can ask about the ratio of good to bad cholesterol as well as the overall level, and what this means for you.