Cholesterol: Why It Matters for Your Health

A cholesterol test is often included as part of a primary care visit with your healthcare provider. Understanding what types of cholesterol there are and what effect they have on our bodies can be difficult, yet vital to our overall health and wellness. In today’s episode, Dr. Yan Sun, Internal Medicine Physician at MetroHealth, will discuss the importance of knowing what types of cholesterol there are, the differences and effects of each, and what diet and lifestyle choices we can make to maintain healthy cholesterol levels in our bodies.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up everybody. Mattie Wills checking in with another episode
of Be Well with Mattie Wills, of course, brought to
you by the five folks over at Metro Health, where
we have a different conversation about wellbeing, physical health, mental
health and all of the above. And today we are
with my friend doctor jan Son, who's going to tell
you a little bit about cholesterol, the different types of cholesterol,

(00:22):
why it's important for you to maintain a healthy lifestyle
as it pertains the cholesterol and everything in regard to that.
But before we get to that part of the conversation,
why don't you just tell everybody Doctor's Son a little
bit about you, your journey and the Metro Health and
what exactly you do here.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Thanks Maddie. So, I joined Metro Health in twenty twenty
three and I have been working here for two years
as an internal medicine doctor and today I'm so happy
to be here to shell the information about the Classow Well, we.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Really appreciate you taking some time out of your busy dads.
One thing that we do know and I appreciate is
that you guys are extremely busy. You all went to
school for a million years and you have busy calendars
and all of that, so we really appreciate you, you know,
taking a few minutes for us. But without further ado,
what kind of happen to this cholesterol conversation? Okay, so
I think the most obvious and probably pertinent question to

(01:13):
kick things off is what is cholesterol? What are the
different types of cholesterol in our bodies? And what is
a lipid panel?

Speaker 2 (01:20):
That's a very good spreading question. So what is clasterol?
Actually chlasterol known as lipid, which is a very important
substance in our body. It's kind of a vaxy, fat
like substance and you can find in our blood and cells.
So when you when people go to see doctor, usually
the doctor will order lipi panel. So, which included class

(01:42):
room and clustero have a several types. The first is
l d L low density lipi protein, which we call
usually we call this a bad class room means that
it's not good for your health. Another type of classterol
is h d L high density lipip protein. Usually we
call this good Clasterol means that it's good for your

(02:02):
health and sometimes and usually it can help you remove
the LDL from your body. So when you look at
your lippip panel, you can see another name called triglassride.
Actually triglystride is not chlasterol, but it's another type of lipid.
So usually when we check the lipip panel, we will
check both triglysrid and cholesterol together and usually in your

(02:24):
lippip panel we will see another numbers total clasterol which
include l dl HDL and a small amount of triglassride,
and both are triglass ride. Our cholesterol will be transported
in your body by lippi protein and if you can
see the high LDL, high trick glys rate and the

(02:45):
low l HDL, it can cause a plaque build up
in your arterisk which increase the risk of health conditions
like stroke, heart attack, and a vascular disease.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
So I do have more questions about the good versus
the bad cholesterol. But in your estimation, how early and
often should we have our cholesterol levels checked?

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Sure, there's a very good question. So usually Metro Health
recommend all children before their puberty at a year age
of nine to eleven years old and after puberty at
a year of seventeen to twenty one years old, all
kids should have one time lipid panel screening test for
young adult. If you never had any lipid panel screening

(03:28):
as a child, usually you should get your basically a
lipid panel check at the first time you go to
see your primar cael doctor in the future. How often
and when you're going to follow up your lipid panel
it really depends on risk factors, like if you have hypertension, diabetes,
you know, smoking cigarettes, or family history of premutual corner

(03:49):
artery disease. So if you do have moderate to high
risk and then usually you should follow up your LIPIT
panel in mail around twenty five to three years old
and in female around thirty to thirty five years old,
and usually you should repeat every one to two years.
But if you don't have any risk factor your risk
is very low, you can start up for upp panel

(04:13):
in male at a year of thirty five years old
and female at age of forty five years old, and
usually you can repeat every four to six years.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Oh wow, yeah, so you don't have so so what
you're saying though, if you're at low risk, then you
don't you don't necessarily need to check it every year.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Exactly, more like four to six years exactly.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Okay, But it is important, obviously to get that initial
exactly diagnosed.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
It's very important.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Gotcha, gotcha? And that's a common thing with any of
the doctors that I've spoken with, no matter what we're
talking about, it always seems like, you know, check, you know,
you might want to check first and not wait until
you're you know a lot of my friends forty years
old or whatnot before you just start looking for the
first time. But get the initial diagnosis done so that

(04:58):
you can know where you are and then.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
Kind of and also you need to know that the
risk factor change. Right, you might very healthy at your
thirty years old, thirty five years old, but you might
have hypertension diabetes at foty years old, so you should
more frequently SCREENALLYPIP panel.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Right makes sense, all right, So what factors can contribute
to high LDL levels and what effects can they have
on our bodies?

Speaker 2 (05:21):
So many factors can contribute to high LDL and low HDL.
The first is product And you know there's a bad fat, right,
It's like saturated fat, trans fat. They're all bad fat,
such as the animal products, fry food, baked food, process food.
They're all bad fat, which can cause your high class level,

(05:44):
and also another factors like smoking cigarettes, physical inactivity, stress.
I want to mention stress is because stress usually can
change your hormones and cause the clusteral level change. And
also you're on the line health condition like obesity, hypertension,

(06:04):
chronic commune disease. And also lastly, I want to mention
the factory is genetic and just some people they have
inheritage gen mutation which can prevent your body from removing
the LDL and sometimes can cause the health condition we
call family a hyperlibitemia. So sometimes it can cause dangerously

(06:25):
a high LDL level and high triglassteride levels.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
So for me, I know that when you think about
high cholesterol, I often think about the food association with that,
but you definitely laid it out. Genetics obviously plays a
huge role in that. And then just the level of
physical activity, and just like physical overall physical health also
plays a big role and it plays a big role

(06:50):
in that. And then the one that I didn't think about,
maybe just because less people smoke cigarettes nowadays, but cigarette
smoke definitely will contribute to bad cholesterol, huh exactly.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
So that's why we should quit smoking cigarettes.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
That is another reason why we should quit starting cigarettes.
What are some simple diet and lifestyle changes that we
can make to maintain a healthy cholesterol level.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
Sure, so first of all, just now we mention the
product the bad fat, but we do have a healthy
good fat like the fish, you know, seafood, avocado, olive,
your oil, some nuts, that's all very good healthy fat.
So you should avoid bad fat and keep on the
good fat. And then just now we mentioned like the

(07:31):
stress you know, smoking cigarettes, so you should just try
to quep smoking cigarettes and try to reduce the stress.
And then for your underline health condition, of course you
need to go to your doctor and try to manage
your health condition and control your by pressure and your
heart disease. And then lastly a want to mention is
the physical activity. So why is so important? That's because

(07:55):
when you exercise, actually your body can produce lipiprotein, which
is enzyme can help your body remove the LDL. So
that's why exercise is so important. And then usually we
recommend people, should you exercise every week like about one
hundred and fifty minutes moderate intensive exercise to becouseful. This

(08:16):
moderate intensive, oh, you can do every week like seventy
minutes of rigorous, intensive exercise. So if you like do
all of this lifestyle change, I believe that's going to
be significant to help you come to a clusterol level.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
So when you you know, say you got a diagnosis
that your bad cholesterol was too high and then you
do undergo change in lifestyle in terms of your physical
activity and you change your diet. How I mean, I'm
sure it depends on the person. But how long would
a doctor such as yourself be looking before you would

(08:54):
expect to see some real change in cholesterol levels.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
Well, there's no exactly how long you should check. It
really depends how high is your classroom level. So sometimes
if your CLASTERO like bad class roow is very high,
very high track class right, usually your doctor may ask
you to check every three every three months, but usually
every six months every year should be enough monitoring your
classroom level.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
And then there's no the only way to check it
is to just come get blood work done exactly. Yeah, okay, okay,
Well another strong set of reasons why you should have
a very healthy relationship with your doctor so that you
know exactly what's going on in your body.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
So appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
Thanks, thank you. So if you need to schedule a
wellness visit that includes a cholesterol check. Then you can
schedule an appointment with your primary care provider through my
chart online at metrohealth dot org slash appointments, or you
can call the number two one six my Metro again.
That's two one six six nine six three eight seven six.

(09:54):
I'm Mattie Wills. That is doctor Son. Thank you so
much for your time, Thank.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
You so much for you invite to me here.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Absolutely perfect