You may have heard people talk about cholesterol, but what is it, why does it matter, and what can you do about it?

Cholesterol is a fatty substance made by the liver and carried around your body in your blood. Your body needs some cholesterol to stay healthy and work properly. However, having too much of the wrong type (non-HDL, or bad cholesterol) can increase your risk of heart and circulatory diseases.

When there is too much bad cholesterol in your blood, it can build up inside your arteries. Over time, these fatty deposits can make your arteries narrower and harder for blood to flow through. This means your heart has to work harder to pump blood around your body, which can increase your blood pressure.

Left untreated, high cholesterol can increase the risk of high blood pressure and other serious health problems, including heart attack and stroke. For good heart health, it’s important to keep your good cholesterol levels higher than your bad cholesterol levels.

Why knowing your numbers matters

One of the tricky things about high cholesterol is that it usually has no symptoms. Many people don’t know they have high cholesterol until they have a health check or a blood test. That’s why regular NHS Health Checks are so important. But getting your blood pressure checked also plays a key role in detecting the first signs that something may not be quite right with your heart and blood vessels. By knowing your numbers, you can spot potential problems early and take steps to protect your health.

Blood pressure checks are available at community venues across the borough, making it easy for you to drop in and find out what your numbers are:

What else can you do?

High cholesterol can be caused by several things. Some risk factors can be changed, while others cannot.

Things you can do something about

There are plenty of positive changes you can make to help keep your cholesterol at a healthy level:

• Eat a healthy, balanced diet with plenty of vegetables and fruit
• Cut down on foods high in saturated fat
• Be physically active and move more
• Stop smoking

The Healthy Lifestyles Service and the Stop Smoking Service are here to support you to make the lifestyle change you want to make.

Things you can’t change

Some factors are outside of our control, including:

• Your age, cholesterol levels often rise as you get older
• Your sex, men are more likely to develop high cholesterol at a younger age
• Your family history
• Your ethnicity (People of South Asian and African descent have an increased risk)

Even if you have some of these risk factors, healthy lifestyle changes can still have a big impact on your cholesterol levels and overall heart health.

October is National Cholesterol Month, and the message from Heart UK  this year is that “Every Swap Counts”. Every small change you make – from taking the stairs instead of the escalator, to snacking on carrots instead of crisps – contributes to better heart health.

You can find information, tools and local support through our Do It For campaign, which offers 12 weeks of emails with bitesize tips to help you make small changes that can lead to big improvements in your health and wellbeing. Because it’s never too late to make positive changes. Every healthy choice you make is an investment in a healthier heart and a healthier future.