If you do more exercise can you eat more cholesterol with blood levels going high?

Hi Matt,

Cholesterol, in reality, is just fat in our blood. We do need some cholesterol, however, in excess, high levels of cholesterol increases the chances that plaques will develop in your arteries, thereby increasing your risk of a heart attack or stroke. If you look at your lipid profile from your healthcare provider, you’ll see that there are different kinds of cholesterol in addition to your total cholesterol level. There should be LDL-C, HDL-C, and triglyceride levels. The LDL, or low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, is often referred to as the “bad cholesterol”. The HDL, or high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, or “good cholesterol”, has been described as being like a snow plow; the HDL cholesterol picks up deposits of fat in your arteries and carries them out of the arteries, which decreases your risk of a heart attack or stroke; this type of cholesterol you want your levels to increase, unlike the other types of cholesterol, where the general rule is the lower the better. Triglycerides are fats from processed foods like pepperoni.

Your cholesterol levels are partly a result of genetic predisposition, partly diet, and partly exercise. Exercise has been shown to increase the good, HDL, cholesterol. Although if someone is genetically predisposed to a low HDL level, which is an independent risk factor for heart disease, they might be prescribed niacin by their healthcare provider to help increase the HDL cholesterol; exercise often will not increase HDL significantly enough to decrease risk of heart disease if someone’s body naturally wants to have low HDL cholesterol. However, it is really your diet choices that will impact your LDL and triglyceride levels more so than exercise.

The short answer to your second question, is yes, even if you exercise, you want to have cholesterol levels within recommended ranges to decrease your risk of a heart attack. That being said, there is a significant amount of data demonstrating that fitness levels are the best predictor of mortality, even after accounting for other risk factors, such as cholesterol levels. I would strongly encourage you to ask your healthcare provider to have a lipid profile done, if one has not been done recently, (it is obtained by a quick blood draw) and to review the results with you and answer any questions you might have about what the results mean for your health. Continue to exercise regularly, especially engaging in cardiovascular exercise (i.e. walking, biking, running, rowing, swimming, etc.), since we know that it your cardiorespiratory fitness that decreases your risk of a heart attack, and limit, as much as possible, foods that are high in saturated fat and trans fat. I always mention to people that if your body is genetically inclined to have high cholesterol levels, you might be prescribed a statin drug (i.e. Zocor, simvastatin is the generic name) to help get things closer to normal limits.

I hope this helps!

Lauren

Hi Matt

If you mean"eating"foods with cholesterol, don't worry because that won't increase your blood cholesterol.