Cholesterol...

[Skipbidder]

High cholesterol is a long term problem, not a short term one. You can make a significant improvement in your cholesterol profile with diet and exercise modifications. If you already eat well and exercise, then you can blame your parents for bad genes. I eat like crap, get no exercise, yet have a great cholesterol panel.

Your doc will look at your other risk factors to consider how important cholesterol lowering therapy is. Smoking, family history of heart attacks (or clogged arteries that got stents or bypasses), especially at younger ages or among women, diabetes, high blood pressure are all risk factors. The level of your cholesterol as well as the level of the seperate components are important in assessing risk.

Your doctor probably checked liver enzymes at the same time as cholesterol because the first line medication she would use for treating you can have an effect on them and should be monitored.

2 months isn't really that long time before another appointment. I frequently pick 3 months (or even more) in order to give someone a chance to make some lifestyle changes.

The risk factor models that I use don't really apply to people as young as you (age cutoff for the Framingham models are 30).

As an example, for a 30 year old, with total cholesterol 300, HDL (good cholesterol) 40 (low normal), blood pressure 150/90, nonsmoker, and nondiabetic, your 10 year risk of coronary heart disease is 8% (which is way above the average risk of 3% for that age group). Add smoking and diabetes, and bump up the blood pressure to 160/100, and you'd bump up your risk to 25%