High Cholesterol Risk Factors

Video Transcript

"Hello, my name is Dr. Susan Jewell and on behalf of Expert Village today I'm going to talk to you about cholesterol. And in particular in this series of clips we are going to talk about how to lower the intake of cholesterol. Now in this clip we are going to talk about risk factors. Risk factors of getting cardiovascular diseases like strokes and heart attacks because you have high cholesterol levels in your body; now one of the risk factors. Well it's been shown that cigarettes and certain lifestyles like sedentary lifestyles, drinking a large amount of alcohol and diet, obesity overweight, high fatty diets are some major contributing factors that will increase your cholesterol level in your body and therefore put you at risk at a higher risk of getting cardiovascular problems like heart attack or strokes. The age and sex also is a contributing factor. The older you are, the more you've put yourself at risk for getting cardiovascular disease if you've not lived a healthy lifestyle in terms of your intake, your diet and exercise. Also sex as well. Females tend to be at a higher risk of getting cardiovascular problems in terms of having a high cholesterol level. Certain diseases like diabetes and hypertension puts a person at a high risk compared to the normal population of getting higher cholesterol levels because the disease itself and also because of the medication; some medication that causes the sequestering or retaining of the cholesterol in the blood. So diabetes, hypertension puts a person at a even higher risk of getting cardiovascular problems. And of course if you have high HDL levels in your blood. So these are some of the factors to consider when you are looking at a person with, at a risk of getting cardiovascular problems from high cholesterol in the blood."