Doctors at Ho Chi Minh City University of Medicine and Pharmacy Hospital are examining a patient with high blood fat.
Rapid increase in young people
Although only 30 years old, Mr. Tran Van Lam (residing in Thu Duc City, Ho Chi Minh City) had to undergo coronary angioplasty due to myocardial infarction. Through testing and treatment, doctors discovered that Mr. Lam had a cholesterol (fat) level in his blood at over 16mmol/L (nearly 3 times higher than normal), and a triglyceride (neutral fat) level of 8.5mmol/l (many times higher than normal) because he often drank alcohol and ate animal organs.
Mr. Nguyen Tat Dat (26 years old, living in Tan Binh district, Ho Chi Minh City) also fell into a depressed mood when he saw that his blood fat test results increased 3 times even though he was very young. Dr. Le Thi Tuyet Phuong, Head of the Department of Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology, People's Hospital 115, warned that in reality, not only middle-aged people but also many young people have increased blood fat due to improper diet. The worrying thing is that excess cholesterol in the blood mostly has no external manifestations, and blood tests are needed to know the results, so the disease often progresses very slowly; while excess fat is the leading cause of non-communicable diseases, increasing the risk of death.
Recently, the Ho Chi Minh City Center for Disease Control has issued a warning that dyslipidemia is rapidly increasing in Vietnam, with nearly half of the population having high blood cholesterol levels. This raises concerns about the risk of dangerous cardiovascular diseases such as stroke and myocardial infarction. According to survey data, the proportion of people with total cholesterol of 5.0 mmol/L or higher or taking medication has increased from 30.2% to 44.1%. This is an alarming increase in a short period of time, showing that the risk of cardiovascular disease is quietly spreading in the community.
High blood cholesterol is one of the main risk factors leading to atherosclerosis, causing narrowing of the arteries, which can easily lead to stroke, acute heart attack and many other dangerous complications. This condition often has no obvious symptoms in the early stages, causing many people to be subjective and not be detected early.
Meanwhile, statistics from the Ministry of Health show that on average, 3 out of 10 adults have excess cholesterol in their bodies. More worryingly, this condition is increasing rapidly in young people, even some under 30 years old. The high rate of excess cholesterol in our country is mainly due to a sedentary lifestyle, especially unhealthy eating habits and diet, smoking, alcohol abuse, etc.
Change your lifestyle and diet
According to medical experts, in the body, there are two main types of cholesterol: LDL (bad cholesterol) and HDL (good cholesterol). If the body has increased bad cholesterol, it means there is too much LDL in the blood. This excess, along with some other substances, forms plaque, accumulates on the artery walls, causing atherosclerosis, which in the long term leads to cardiovascular diseases. Cholesterol comes from two sources: produced in the body and from food.
In the body, cholesterol is produced in the liver, accounting for 80%; in food, cholesterol is abundant in meat, milk, egg yolks, and animal organs. Cholesterol at a certain level is necessary, the body cannot lack it. In normal people, blood cholesterol levels are always stable, only when they increase too high will it cause disease and this case is called "hyperlipidemia".
According to Dr. Do Thi Ngoc Diep, President of the Ho Chi Minh City Food Nutrition Association, the five main causes of excess cholesterol are: eating foods high in cholesterol (beef, pork, animal organs); drinking a lot of alcohol, beer and carbonated drinks; being lazy to exercise and participating in little physical activity; underlying diseases, family history; age. In addition, people with high blood pressure and diabetes often have higher than normal cholesterol levels.
If a person is diagnosed with high cholesterol without underlying disease or family history, the first thing to do is to change their diet and lifestyle. Patients should limit all unhealthy fats, which contain a lot of cholesterol, found in many food sources. Instead, they should eat foods containing soluble fiber (beans, rice bran, barley, fruits) to help reduce total cholesterol levels in the blood and add beneficial fats to their daily diet from salmon, mackerel, and herring.
Dr. Do Thi Ngoc Diep also recommends that people should increase physical activities such as exercising, walking, cycling, swimming; limit alcohol; maintain a reasonable weight; do not smoke. People over 20 years old should check their total blood lipids once a year, and people over 50 years old should check every 6 months because high blood cholesterol often has no symptoms. Absolutely do not believe in advertisements for blood lipid filtering to prevent disease. Blood lipid filtering techniques are currently only applied to cases of acute pancreatitis accompanied by high triglyceride levels (over 11 mmol/L).
According to the Ministry of Health, total cholesterol from 5.2-6.2mmol/l (from 200-239mg/dl) is at the normal threshold; normal triglyceride from 2.26-4.5mmol/l (from 200-400mg/dl); normal HDL (good cholesterol) level is below 0.9mmol/l (below 35mg/l); normal LDL (bad cholesterol) is below 3.4mmol/l (below 130mg/dl).
MINH NAM
Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/chu-dong-kiem-soat-mo-trong-mau-post794555.html
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