High blood lipids ≠ greasy diet! So what is the trick?

Author: Liu Wenxian, Chief Physician, Beijing Anzhen Hospital, Capital Medical University

Reviewer: Zhang Haicheng, Chief Physician, Peking University People's Hospital

Blood lipids, like wealth flowing in our body, nourish life but can also become invisible killers of health.

As public health awareness increases, the term hyperlipidemia appears more and more in our field of vision. Many people have many misunderstandings about hyperlipidemia, thinking that it is simply caused by eating too much greasy food. However, the formation of hyperlipidemia is much more complicated than we think.

1. The formation mechanism of hyperlipidemia

Hyperlipidemia, as the name suggests, refers to excessive fat content in the blood. Blood lipids are mainly composed of triglycerides and cholesterol, both of which are essential nutrients for the human body, but excessive amounts can cause health problems.

Cholesterol in the human body mainly comes from two sources: one is exogenous cholesterol ingested through food, and the other is endogenous cholesterol synthesized by organs such as the liver. It is worth noting that about 2/3 of cholesterol is synthesized by the liver. This shows that even if you eat lightly, your blood lipid level may still be affected by your own synthesis. Therefore, controlling blood lipids is not only about "controlling your mouth", but also about "controlling your liver".

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The formation of high blood lipids is not only related to diet, but also to many factors such as genetics, age, gender, and lifestyle. Familial hypercholesterolemia is a typical hereditary hyperlipidemia. In addition, as people age, their body's metabolic capacity decreases, which can easily lead to elevated blood lipids.

2. Hyperlipidemia should be treated even if there are no symptoms

In most cases, hyperlipidemia has no specific clinical manifestations, and patients are often unable to detect it themselves. However, hyperlipidemia is an important risk factor for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases such as coronary heart disease and stroke. Especially for people who have not taken effective intervention measures, the lipid components in their blood may gradually deposit on the blood vessel walls to form lipid plaques. These plaques gradually increase in size over time, causing the lumen of the blood vessels to narrow, and in severe cases, they may even cause complete occlusion of the lumen, affecting the normal circulation of blood.

For the heart, this situation may cause coronary heart disease, namely coronary atherosclerotic heart disease, which manifests as insufficient blood supply to the myocardium. In severe cases, serious consequences such as angina pectoris and myocardial infarction may occur.

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What we need to understand is that although drug treatment can lower blood lipid levels, it cannot cure hyperlipidemia. Reasonable diet, moderate exercise and good living habits are the cornerstones of hyperlipidemia management.

3. Health management of high blood lipids

Healthy management of hyperlipidemia is a long process that requires the joint efforts of patients and doctors.

First of all, regular physical examinations are the key to understanding your blood lipid status. Through regular blood tests, we can accurately understand our blood lipid levels, so as to detect and respond to potential health risks in a timely manner.

In terms of diet, patients with hyperlipidemia should give priority to vegetable oils rich in unsaturated fatty acids rather than animal oils mainly containing saturated fatty acids. Unsaturated fatty acids are more beneficial to health than saturated fatty acids. Saturated fatty acids are more easily converted into fat and cholesterol in the body, thereby increasing the burden on the body. Unsaturated fatty acids in vegetable oils help maintain blood lipid balance and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

However, this does not mean that vegetable oils can be used without restriction. Excessive intake of any type of fat, including unsaturated fatty acids, may lead to incomplete metabolism by the body, which in turn may cause health problems. Therefore, patients with hyperlipidemia should control the amount of oil used when cooking to avoid excessive greasy food.

At the same time, increasing dietary fiber intake, such as eating more vegetables, fruits and whole grains, can help lower blood lipid levels. Maintaining a balanced diet and taking in enough vitamins, minerals and protein is also an important factor in maintaining healthy blood lipid levels.

In addition to diet, moderate exercise is also an effective means to lower blood lipids. The combination of aerobic exercise and resistance exercise should be considered to achieve better lipid-lowering effects and physical health.

Aerobic exercise, such as jogging, swimming, brisk walking and mountain climbing, helps lower blood lipid levels and reduce weight by burning calories to support the exercise process. These exercises are not only simple and easy to do, but can also effectively improve cardiopulmonary function and promote blood circulation throughout the body.

Resistance exercise focuses on muscle training, such as using dumbbells or barbells for exercise, or squats with elastic bands. This type of exercise can enhance muscle strength and endurance, improve body shape, and reduce fat accumulation. Resistance exercise can also improve the body's balance ability and reduce the risk of sports injuries.

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In addition, quitting smoking and limiting alcohol consumption are also important measures to lower blood lipid levels. Smoking and heavy drinking will increase blood lipid levels, especially heavy drinking, which mainly affects blood lipids by damaging liver function. The liver is an important organ for fat metabolism in the human body. Heavy drinking can cause liver damage, similar to a certain degree of acute liver injury, which in turn affects the liver's normal metabolism of fat.

Of course, while taking lifestyle interventions, drug therapy is also an important means of managing hyperlipidemia. Under the guidance of a doctor, the use of lipid-lowering drugs such as statins can more effectively lower blood lipid levels and prevent the occurrence of cardiovascular diseases. However, drug therapy is not isolated, it needs to be combined with the patient's lifestyle intervention to achieve the best treatment effect.