How Does LDL Cholesterol Lead To Heart Attack?

The bad LDL cholesterol has been known to be one of the causes for heart disease which can lead to heart attack. This is because LDL cholesterol clogs the inside of the arteries with fat which narrows them up by building debris on the inside of the arteries which can result in atherosclerosis. Even people who have just a little high LDL levels may get atherosclerosis and heart attacks.

LDL Cholesterol Is A Silent Killer

Once you have high LDL cholesterol level in your body, lowering the level of this bad cholesterol does not guarantee that it would prevent you from suffering atherosclerosis or heart attack. There have been many instances where patients were able to lower and keep their LDL cholesterol at the lowest levels by taking the right medication and following the right diet and exercise regime very seriously. However, they still developed progressive atherosclerosis and even experienced mild heart attacks.

This happens even in the best conditions such as when the patient does not indulge in smoking or drinking of alcohol or any other risk factors.

This shows that lowering the LDL cholesterol alone cannot solve the problem. Once the arteries have been clogged, the medical problems arising from it cannot be stopped by merely by lowering the levels of LDL cholesterol. It needs something unclog the arteries so as to reverse the atherosclerosis process and lower the risk of heart attack. This is achievable only with increasing the HDL cholesterol.

HDL cholesterol is the good cholesterol which is known to remove the debris of fat that has clogged the inside walls of the arteries. It cleans the arteries and enables free flow of blood. The fats that the HDL cholesterol picks up from the affected arteries are sent to the liver which will break them down and excrete them out of the system.

That is why to avoid the dangers of heart disease and heart attack, it is important to avoid the formation of LDL cholesterol in the first place. You should also always have high levels of HDL cholesterol because of its ability to clean the arteries and hence keeping the cardio-vascular system healthy.

Studies that have been done clearly indicated that increased LDL cholesterol can be seriously dangerous. The only way to fight the resulting heart disease is to keep the LDL cholesterol levels at the lowest possible level in the blood. Besides that, you should always make sure you have high levels of good cholesterol.