Lipitor Articles

Lipitor Helps High cholesterol

05 January 2007

High Cholesterol can be found in almost 1 out of 5 people and is not just restricted to overweight or older people. Being young, thin and active or even being careful about your diet may not be enough as even then you may have high cholesterol. For many, diet and exercise may not lower cholesterol enough.

Your blood cholesterol level is an indication of your chances of getting heart disease. One of the major risk factors for heart disease is high cholesterol. So, in other words, the higher the blood cholesterol, the more is the chance of getting a heart attack or heart problem. In the US, heart disease is the major killer of both men and women and every year, over a million Americans have heart attacks and about a half million suffer from heart disease.

Cholesterol is a fat-like substance in your blood and it builds up inside the walls of the arteries. This results in the hardening of the arteries so that they become narrow and as a result of this the blood flow to the heart is slowed down or blocked. The blood carries the oxygen to the heart and when the flow of blood and oxygen cannot reach the heart, chest pain occurs. When the blood supply to a part of the heart is totally cut off by a blockage, there is a heart attack.

There are no symptoms of high blood cholesterol so many people are not even aware if they have high cholesterol. It is very important to therefore find out what your cholesterol level is as incase you have a high level it must be lowered and thus the risk of having heart disease or a heart attack is reduced. This is important for all age groups: young, middle aged, older; men and women and even those with or without heart disease.

The blood test to check your cholesterol is the Lipoprotein profile and this gives information about the total cholesterol, LDL or bad cholesterol and HDL or good cholesterol and triglycerides or another form of fat in the blood.

The basic things that should be kept in check are diet, exercise, smoking and basic physical activity. But for the most accurate diagnosis and help you must consult the Doctor who may need more information on your lifestyle and even some further investigations to get a perfect understanding of the status of your overall health.

The Doctor would advise you on a low cholesterol diet, behaviour and exercise therapy and probably will suggest taking Lipitor. Most people take Lipitor to bring down their cholesterol. In fact, Lipitor is prescribed more than twice as much as the next leading statin. However, as you know no medication must be taken without the Doctor’s advice so that there are no Lipitor side effects and the Doctor can adjust the dose according to your needs. Stay Healthy!