In modern urban life, with the change of people’s diet structure, all kinds of fast food, high fat, high fat, coupled with going out with a car and going in with a seat, has led to the problem of blood lipids in most of the population.
Blood lipids are an important substance in the human body and have many very important functions, but they should not exceed a certain range. If there is too much lipid, it will easily cause what we understand as “thick blood”, which will be deposited on the walls of blood vessels and gradually form small plaques, which are often called “atherosclerosis”. These “plaques” increase in size and gradually block the blood vessels, slowing down the blood flow and, in severe cases, interrupting it.
However, high blood lipids are usually not easily detected and are often pointed out by doctors during medical checkups, which causes a lot of problems for people: I have no symptoms, how can my blood lipids be high? Isn’t high blood lipids the sole property of fat people, how can I be so thin and have high blood lipids? I hardly eat meat, but my blood lipids are still high? The purpose of this article is to solve some of your confusion about blood lipids and to achieve the purpose of early detection and early treatment by preventing diseases before they occur.
I. Overview of blood lipids
Lipids are fats in the blood, which are essential for the basic metabolism of living cells. Generally speaking, the main components of blood lipids are cholesterol and triglycerides. Cholesterol is mainly used for the synthesis of cell plasma membranes, steroid hormones and bile acids, while triglycerides are involved in energy metabolism in the body.
Most of the cholesterol is synthesized by the liver and is called endogenous cholesterol: some of it comes from cholesterol-rich foods, such as egg yolk, cream, brain marrow, and animal offal, and is called exogenous cholesterol. Cholesterol must bind to lipoproteins to be transported to various parts of the body to function, and is mainly divided into LDL cholesterol and HDL cholesterol. When LDL cholesterol binds to cholesterol, it is transported from the liver to tissues throughout the body. When LDL cholesterol is too high, it accumulates in the walls of blood vessels and causes atherosclerosis. This is why LDL cholesterol is called “bad cholesterol”. When HDL cholesterol is combined with cholesterol, it is transported from the surrounding tissues back to the liver and discharged from the body to reduce or avoid the formation of vascular hardening and blood clots, playing the role of vascular scavenger, so it is called “good cholesterol”.
Second, common misconceptions about blood lipid problems
1.I have no symptoms, so my blood lipid is not high
Wrong! In general, people with hyperlipidemia have no obvious symptoms or abnormal signs, and the diagnosis of hyperlipidemia is mainly made through blood biochemical tests. Many people with hyperlipidemia do not have symptoms at the beginning, so they think that there will be no major impact on their health in the short term and let down their guard. In fact, if hyperlipidemia is not effectively controlled for a long time, it will easily lead to the following three types of diseases: first, heart diseases, including cardiac atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease, angina pectoris or myocardial infarction; second, cerebrovascular diseases, mainly cerebral thrombosis and cerebral hemorrhage caused by cerebral vascular sclerosis; third, kidney diseases, renal atherosclerosis can easily lead to uremia. In order to prevent the appearance of the above heart, brain and kidney diseases, lipid-lowering treatment cannot be ignored.
2.Blood lipid is a little high, but it doesn’t matter.
Wrong! For every 1 mmol/l increase in LDL, cardiovascular risk increases by 22%. Hyperlipidemia is associated with both coronary heart disease and stroke. Many studies have been conducted worldwide on cholesterol lowering to prevent coronary heart disease and the results clearly show that a 1% reduction in plasma cholesterol is associated with a 2% reduction in the risk of coronary heart disease events. In recent years, there has also been a growing understanding of the relationship between high cholesterol and ischemic stroke. Epidemiological studies and randomized controlled clinical studies have shown that as LDL-C levels decrease, the risk of ischemic stroke can also be reduced.
3. Only fat people have high blood lipids.
Wrong! Thin people can also develop hyperlipidemia. In fact, hyperlipidemia is not exclusive to fat people, but also to many slim people. The main cause of hyperlipidemia is the increase in LDL cholesterol and triglycerides in the blood, which can be caused by both external and internal factors. External causes are mainly dietary factors, such as excessive intake of foods with high cholesterol and saturated fatty acid content. The endogenous causes are the elevated cholesterol synthesized in the body due to genetics or disease, or abnormal cholesterol metabolism in the body, which leads to hyperlipidemia. Therefore, hyperlipidemia is not necessarily related to body fat or thin, it may be more common in fat people, but it is also not uncommon for thin people to suffer from this disease.
4, I do not eat meat, blood lipids should not be high.
Wrong! Elevated blood lipids are not only related to diet, but also to abnormalities in blood lipid metabolism, so if you don’t eat meat, your blood lipids will still be high. On the other hand, if you eat cholesterol-rich foods such as meat and vegetables, your blood lipids will not necessarily be high. In addition to its close relationship with atherosclerosis, cholesterol also has many important physiological roles: for example, it can be converted into bile acids to help digestion and absorption of fats; into adrenocorticotropic hormones to play a regulatory role in material metabolism; and into sex hormones such as estrogen and androgen to play its role in regulating fertility, etc.
5.After the blood lipids are normalized by taking medication, there is no need to take lipid-lowering medication.
Wrong! First of all, healthy people’s blood lipids do not exceed the standard can be considered normal. If patients suffer from hypertension or diabetes, or even had a heart attack, stroke, renal insufficiency, etc., the target value of blood lipids is not only normal, but also requires lower control, especially low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) should be lower than 2.1mmol/L; susceptible people, such as men over 40 years old, menopausal women, obese, with yellow tumor, dyslipidemia and family history of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease Secondly, lipid-lowering drugs need to be taken persistently; once the drugs are stopped, the lipids will rise again and affect the treatment effect. After the lipid standard is reached, most patients still need to take the original dose continuously. Patients without coronary heart disease or stroke can gradually reduce the dose under the guidance of doctors and find the lowest effective dose and take it for a long time, which can reduce the adverse drug reactions.
Third, the prevention and treatment of hyperlipidemia has three “magic weapons”
1.Rational diet.
Reasonable diet, mainly pay attention to low-fat diet, do not eat fatty meat and lard, eat less animal liver, limit the amount of meat, less butter, less cream, drinking low-fat milk, usually stir-fry with vegetable oil instead of animal oil, eat more vegetables, fruits. People with high blood lipids should adjust their dietary structure, completely eating vegetarian does not necessarily lower lipids, only a balanced nutrition can achieve the purpose of scientific lipid reduction.
2.Regular exercise
Patients can choose walking, jogging, swimming, tai chi, etc. As long as they are persistent and maintain a certain intensity of exercise, they can achieve the purpose of preventing high blood lipid and reducing cardiovascular disease.
3.Lowering blood lipid drugs
When diet control and proper exercise cannot solve the problem of high blood lipids, patients should take lipid-lowering drugs in time under the guidance of doctors to prevent cardiovascular diseases.