Is cholesterol affected by historical bad habits?

[jonnyapps]

Hi,

I would like to know the following, if possible please:

Person X has a cholesterol level of 100 and starts to eat McDonalds 3 times a day for 10 years. His cholesterol goes up to 200.

If Person X then eats healthily, will their cholesterol ever return to 100?

Put simply: Is cholesterol score a snapshot of 'current' lifestyle or reflective of 'current' lifestyle and 'historical' lifestyle?

Thanks in advance!

[MichaelJH Heart Star]

Hello and welcome to the forum!

The simple answer is NO! It is a measure of your levels when the blood test was taken.

Depending on an individual's make up historical higher values may have caused atherosclerosis typically in the heart arteries, cartoid arteries and limbs (particularly in smokers and diabetics)!

[jonnyapps in reply to MichaelJH]

Thanks for the reply. I understand having high cholesterol causes negative impacts on the body (like atherosclerosis), but I was just thinking purely mathematically - would the cholesterol number return to 100, or is there some mechanism in having high cholesterol over a long period of time that causes that number to always remain higher than the original baseline?

The reason for the way I phrased my question was that I have suspected familial hypercholesterolemia. I am telling my brother he should get checked because my cholesterol is high. His response is "Yeah but you used to smoke and drink lots". I do neither of these things now and have healthy habits, so I'm seeking to understand if my current cholesterol result, taken now, whilst having been on a healthy diet, exercising and not drinking for the last year, is impacted by my previous bad habits, or if it is more likely a rough 'baseline' for the familial aspect of my raised cholesterol.

[Hidden]

So as you lose weight does your blood glucose / insulin levels normalize. And roughly how much weight do you need to lose to does this please ?

[Hidden]

Thankyou StillConcerned