The first noticeable sign of cholesterol can strike when you walk
This Morning's Dr Chris discusses the signs of high cholesterol
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It’s imperative to treat high cholesterol before it progresses to serious health problems like heart disease. While the fatty substance is known for being hesitant to show warning signs, symptoms can appear once cholesterol accumulates in your arteries. One tell-tale sign of this process can strike when you walk.
Leaving high cholesterol quietly building up in your arteries promotes plaque accumulation in this area.
Apart from cholesterol, plaques contain deposits of fatty substances, cellular waste products, calcium and fibrin.
Once your arteries contain too much of this mixture, they become thickened and stiff.
This is no good news for your blood flow, with your legs also taking the hit, triggering the “first noticeable” sign.
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The lack of blood flowing to your legs can sometimes lead to a “common” condition known as peripheral artery disease, or PAD for short, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Fortunately, this condition triggers warning signs when you move about and walk.
The “first noticeable symptom” triggered by PAD is leg discomfort, pain or cramping.
“Most often this pain occurs in the legs after walking at a certain pace and for a certain amount of time — depending on the severity of the condition,” The Mayo Clinic details.
This pain isn’t constant at first, it merely develops with activity and goes away once you rest.
Due to this temporary nature, this pain is often referred to as intermittent claudication.
The Mayo Clinic adds: “It begins during exercise and ends with rest. As claudication worsens, however, the pain may occur during rest.”
It may also make your leg muscles feel numb, weak, heavy and tired.
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The Cleveland Clinic explains that this red flag sign can be severe enough to stop you participating in your usual daily activities, such as “golfing or chasing after grandchildren”.
Apart from pain in your legs, PAD can eventually cause other tell-tale signs, including:
- A burning or aching pain in your feet and toes while resting, especially at night while lying flat
- Cool skin on your feet
- Redness or other colour changes of your skin
- More frequent infections
- Toe and foot sores that don’t heal.
Unfortunately, PAD doesn’t always cause many noticeable symptoms which makes it hard to identify – similarly to high cholesterol.
Because of this silent nature, the most reliable way of determining cholesterol levels is through a blood test.
The doctor can either draw blood from your arm or do a finger-prick test, the NHS explains.
Once you get high cholesterol confirmed, there’s plenty you can do to keep your levels in check, ranging from a healthy diet to cholesterol-busting medicine called statins.
A cholesterol-lowering diet focuses on reducing your intake of saturated fats found in the likes of cheese, butter, sausages and biscuits. However, upping your intake of soluble fibre could also help lower your levels.
Other helpful lifestyle tweaks include cutting back on alcohol, quitting smoking and exercising.
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