Heart Disease

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2.20 Most health experts advise that your LDL cholesterol should be under 100 mg/dl and your HDL cholesterol above 35 mg/dl. The key is to have enough good HDL to counteract the harmful LDL. If you have lots of LDL clogging up your arteries, you must have a correspondingly large amount of HDL cleaning them out as indicated below:

Keeping Your HDL and LDL in Balance

If your LDL is:	You need an HDL of at least:
90	35
100	40
110	45
120	50
130	60
140	65

2.21 If your LDL is over 140 you need to follow a low-fat high-fibre diet regardless of your HDL level. Your blood fat level, technically known as your triglyceride level indicates the amount of fat in your blood stream at any given time. This fluctuates through the day, especially as fat from your food enters your blood stream. Ideally, your triglyceride should be under 150 mg/dl; more than that can make the blood sludgy and more likely to clot.

2.22 Recently, scientists have been pursuing a new concept of heart disease. They theorise that all heart attacks are not caused simply by an accumulation of cholesterol-based plaque in the coronary arteries but by an infection leading to inflammation of some of that plaque, which causes it to rupture and form a blood clot – the true evil doer. Some experts now believe that inflammation of the plaque may be more dangerous than high cholesterol levels.

2.23 Often the most vulnerable plaque is found in arteries that are least clogged, leading to an enduring mystery of heart disease: about half of all heart attacks occur in arteries where plaque is blocking no more than 50% of the artery. The key to preventing heart attacks, researchers believe, is identifying and treating the inflamed areas in the plaque.

2.24 A still more remarkable claim by experts is that you can even reverse the hardening and narrowing of your arteries (atherosclerosis) through a low-fat, low-calorie, low-cholesterol and high-fibre diet and other healthy changes in your lifestyle including regular exercise.