Heart Disease: Is This Protein Test a Better Predictor of Risk Than Cholesterol Levels?

Heart disease is a leading cause of death in the United States, and it kills more than 400,000 people every year. Heart disease can strike at any age, but the risk increases with age. If left untreated, heart disease can lead to serious complications like heart attack or stroke. There are many things you can do to prevent or protect yourself against this condition: eating right (with an emphasis on fruits and vegetables), getting regular exercise and staying hydrated–but what role does cholesterol play?

What Are the Risk Factors for Heart Disease?

• High blood pressure
• High cholesterol
• Smoking or being a smoker
• Diabetes, or pre-diabetes (a condition in which blood sugar is high but not yet high enough to be considered diabetes)
• Obesity, defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher—which means you’re carrying around more than 30 pounds of extra fat tissue on your frame. Your weight depends on whether you’re male or female, with women having less muscle mass than men and weighing more overall because of it; if you’re underweight in relation to what’s considered healthy for your height/heightened risk for health problems such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

Other factors that increase your chances of developing heart disease include: * Sedentary lifestyle (sleeping too little), which can lead to obesity; smoking cigarettes; family history of heart disease; age over 55 years old

What Causes Heart Disease?

Heart disease is a major cause of death in the United States and around the world. In fact, heart disease is one of the leading causes of death among both men and women, accounting for 406,000 deaths each year in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

One factor that contributes to this statistic is high levels of bad cholesterol—known as LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol—which may increase your risk for developing heart disease over time if you’re not careful about how much you eat or exercise regularly. High blood pressure also plays a role in causing atherosclerosis, which can lead to coronary artery blockages if left untreated.

How Can You Reduce Your Risk of Heart Disease?

There are plenty of ways to reduce your risk of heart disease. The best way to do this is by taking a cholesterol-lowering drug and eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, avoiding smoking and alcohol (or not drinking too much coffee), not overeating, and not drinking too much coffee or using recreational drugs.

You can reduce your risk of heart disease by getting your cholesterol levels under control.

The main types of cholesterol are “bad” and “good.”

The good kind is known as HDL, or high-density lipoprotein—and it’s found in your blood vessels. This substance helps clear fats from the body, including those that build up on artery walls and contribute to atherosclerosis (hardening). HDL also helps transport fat from cells back into circulation so they can be burned for energy.

Bad cholesterol comes in two forms: LDL (low-density lipoprotein) and VLDL (very low-density lipoprotein). LDL carries bad fats from other parts of your body back to the liver where they’re stored until they’re needed again; VLDL breaks down into LDL too quickly so there isn’t enough time for this process before being recycled through circulation once again.

Conclusion

While cholesterol levels are an important measurement of your overall health, they can’t always predict your risk of heart disease. If you have high cholesterol and think it might be causing you some problems, talk to a doctor about taking steps to get it under control. They may recommend lifestyle changes like quitting smoking or eating healthy foods instead of junk food, exercising more often and getting regular checkups with blood tests every six months.