Knowing cholesterol numbers could ward off heart disease

Although her overall cholesterol number lingered in the low to mid-200s, she figured her medication would keep it under control.

But she figured wrong, and heart disease slowly started clogging her arteries.

Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, says that over the years, it's become clear to most American women that heart disease is nothing to ignore. It's the leading cause of death of women in the United States, says Nabel, a prominent advocate for women's heart health.

But Nabel says many women still don't know all the risk factors for heart disease, especially when it comes to cholesterol.

"For middle-aged women, 40 to 60, high cholesterol is the single most important risk factor for heart disease and heart attacks," she said. The Heart Truth: How to lower your risk for heart disease

Peiffer didn't think much about her cholesterol until nine years ago, when, at age 39, she began to feel ill during a water aerobics class.



"I started coughing," she recalled. "I was coughing a lot!"

It got so bad she decided to drive home. The cough, she says, grew worse. "The coughing continued, but then I was coughing up this pink, frothy stuff, and I knew that wasn't right."

Alarmed, Peiffer left her kids with her husband and drove herself to the hospital. But because of her age, doctors never considered that she might be having heart problems; they figured she had a virus and sent her home. But later tests showed that she had something wrong with her heart. After performing an angiogram, her doctors told her the bad news
"They told me I had a 99 percent blockage in my left main artery," she said. "I needed open-heart surgery."

Millions of Americans get a diagnosis of high cholesterol every year. Cholesterol comes from two sources: your body and your food. Your liver (and to a smaller degree, your cells) makes about 75 percent of blood cholesterol. The remaining 25 percent comes from the foods you eat.

Cholesterol is divided into two main types. HDL, or high-density lipoprotein, is the "good" cholesterol because it helps to clear excess fats from the arteries. LDL, or low-density lipoprotein, is the bad cholesterol because it clogs the arteries, increasing a person's risk for heart attack and stroke.

The American Heart Association says that in premenopausal women, estrogen tends to raise HDL (good) cholesterol. But as estrogen drops during menopause, HDL levels drop too, and LDL levels rise. That's why women need to know their numbers.