Heart Disease
Coronary Heart Disease
Things you can change: Exercise
If you exercise regularly, you will soon find that you get less tired and will be able to do more. Exercise helps you to lose weight, lower your blood pressure, and improve your blood cholesterol levels.
Before starting an exercise program, consult your doctor. Choose activities that you enjoy, and increase your pace gradually. Make exercise part of your daily routine. Varying the type of exercise helps. If you are overweight or arthritic, you are likely to find that swimming and cycling put less pressure on your joints.
You should try to exercise four or five times a week, allowing your body to recover between sessions. Gradually increase your exercise until you can manage 30 minutes continuously, which should make you sweat or breathe hard.
Will diet and exercise lower my high cholesterol?
Yes. These are important steps. Talk with your doctor about exercise and a weight-loss program. Regular exercise should be an important part of any cholesterol-lowering treatment plan. Exercise not only helps reduce high cholesterol, it may also help reduce other risk factors for heart disease, such as high blood pressure and obesity. Remember - food (especially red meat and dairy products) is a major source of the excess fat and cholesterol in your body. That is why diet is an important part of all treatment plans to lower high cholesterol.
Does diet and exercise work for everyone?
No. Even the strictest low-fat diet and exercise program may not lower your high cholesterol enough. It may be genes or body chemistry. No one knows for sure. That is why doctors usually monitor patients on a low-fat diet for a specific length of time: depending on your situation, your doctor may advise up to 12 weeks for heart patients and at least six months for other high-risk patients. To reduce your risk of heart attack, your goal for LDL cholesterol level should be below 3.4 mmol/L (130 mg/dl) if you have two or more risk factors. If you already have heart disease, your LDL should be below 3.0 mmol/L (115 mg/dl). If you have not reached your goal, or responded positively to the diet treatment within a reasonable time determined by you and your doctor, your doctor may consider other treatment options in addition to diet and exercise.
