How to Tell If You Have High Cholesterol

If you are wondering if you can feel whether or not your cholesterol is too high, the answer may surprise you: you often cannot feel that your cholesterol levels are elevated. But if you ignore your high cholesterol, it could place you at risk for having a heart attack or stroke.

Cardiovascular disease is one of the most common causes of death in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

High cholesterol is one of the main risk factors for developing cardiovascular disease besides having high blood pressure or being obese. Unfortunately, there are no symptoms of high cholesterol in most cases. So, despite feeling healthy, you could still have dangerously high cholesterol levels and not even know it.

How to Tell If You Have High Cholesterol

The only way to find out if you have high cholesterol is through a lipid panel, which is a blood test that will look at the key lipids, or fats, that are in the blood, such as:

LDL cholesterol
HDL cholesterol
Triglycerides
Total cholesterol

If your total cholesterol, LDL, or triglycerides are high or your HDL is too low your healthcare provider may recommend taking medication, making changes to your lifestyle, or a combination of these to help bring your lipids back to a healthy range. Current guidelines from the American Heart Association recommend that everyone over the age of 20 should get their cholesterol checked at once at least every four to six years.

However, if you have a family history of high cholesterol, or you have been diagnosed with a chronic condition, such as diabetes, you may need to get your lipid checked more frequently. In many cases, high cholesterol is found by accident during a routine checkup - and many people are surprised to be diagnosed with high cholesterol when they are otherwise feeling OK.

Other Ways to Tell If You're At Risk

Knowing your risk of developing high cholesterol is also important. Even though you generally do not know that you have high cholesterol, knowing your risk factors for having high cholesterol can help you to be aware that you may acquire this condition down the road. Some risk factors for having high cholesterol are things that we can change, such as modifying our diet and getting more exercise. However, there are other factors we cannot change, such as our gender, our age, or genes. If you have any of the conditions listed below, you are at risk of having high cholesterol and should get checked if you have not already done so:

Inactivity (lack of exercise)
Poor diet
Smoking
Certain medications
Age (the older you are, the more you are at risk)
Family history of high cholesterol
Certain medical conditions (such as diabetes, certain thyroid conditions)

What Happens If You Don't Get Your Cholesterol Checked

Some people are tempted to ignore their high cholesterol, especially because they feel fine despite the high cholesterol levels. However, this is not a wise decision, since persistently high lipid levels could lead to dangerous complications. If you decide to ignore your cholesterol levels by either not getting your cholesterol checked or ignoring your high cholesterol, you could develop cardiovascular disease.

When cholesterol levels are high, it can deposit on inflamed vessels and form a waxy plaque. This process, which is referred to as atherosclerosis, can build up in vessels and cause vessels to become partially blocked. As a result, a heart attack or stroke can occur due to the vessel becoming completely obstructed or the plaque breaking off and moving to another area of the body.

In some cases, people may not find out that they have high cholesterol levels until they have had their first heart attack or stroke. To prevent this, you should have your cholesterol levels checked - and if they are high, be sure to follow the treatment your healthcare provider suggests.

_Sources:

_{Third Report of the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) Expert Panel on Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Cholesterol in Adults (PDF), July 2004, The National Institutes of Heath: The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.}

_{CDC. Deaths: Leading Causes for 2002. National Vital Statistics Reports 2005;53(17).}