Susan Brooks knows high cholesterol could ultimately lead to heart disease, so when she was put on medication for her high cholesterol, she started making changes.
"I was given medication to bring it down but I also had to start making changes, getting more exercise, or actually start exercising," Brooks said.
Susan has also started to read labels and watch what she eats.
“My husband and daughter and I only go out once a week, and laying off fast food, because that was really bad,”she said.
According to the US Preventive Services Task Force, men should start getting their cholesterol checked at a younger age than women.
The recommendations are men over 35 and over 25 if there’s a family history. And women usually don’t have cholesterol problems until they become post-menopausal," lead physician at GBMC’s Owings Mills Primary Care office Dr. Kevin Ferentz said.
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And there’s now more to consider when it comes to your cholesterol, since guidelines have changed.
“Now, what we have to look at is not just cholesterol, it’s actually the total cholesterol, and the good cholesterol, HDL, high density lipoprotein, but we actually have to look at seven other data elements before we figure out if someone that has cholesterol needs to be treated,” Dr. Ferentz said.“It’s so complicated you actually have to have an app on your phone to calculate whether a person has a high cholesterol.”
The app he is referring to is called the ASCVD Risk Estimator. It’s used to estimate 10 year and lifetime risks for cardiovascular disease by plugging in information including age, sex, race, total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, systolic blood pressure, blood pressure lowering medication use, diabetes status, and smoking status.
Once the information is entered, you get your calculated risk.
“So if it’s less than 7.5 percent we don’t do anything and it will even tell you what the recommendations are,” says Dr. Ferentz.
The app is intended to inform, not replace your doctor. It is free in your phone’s app store.
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