How lifestyle affects cholesterol levels

Foods high in refined sugar

and starchy carbohydrates are bad for your

cholesterol

These lipoprotein particles circulate through your bloodstream, dropping off molecules of cholesterol and other substances wherever they are required – and sometimes where they’re not. Because, despite how important cholesterol is to your body’s functioning, you can have too much of this good thing. “We have four times more than we need,” says Professor Graham. “Nobody quite knows why.”

But when that excess goes where it’s least welcome – stuck to the walls of your arteries, as happened to Mohamed – it increases the risk of heart problems. If the arteries leading to the brain are involved, it can increase the risk of stroke.

Not all heart problems are related to high cholesterol, but the World Health Organization estimates that cholesterol is responsible for a third of coronary heart disease cases. That’s significant, because cardiovascular disease is the number-one cause of death globally, accounting for more than 17.5 million deaths a year. Meanwhile, high triglycerides, fats that rise when “good” cholesterol levels fall, can double the risk of stroke, says a large 2012 study. “All the lipids in [blood] plasma are determined by lifestyle and genetics,” says Dr Børge G Nordestgaard of Copenhagen University Hospital. And while you can’t change your genes, you can change your lifestyle.

After analysing results from six earlier studies, scientists determined that exercise can reduce cholesterol, but not as much as an improved diet. You’ll reach healthier levels more surely by combining the two. And, if you’ve added kilos over the years, losing that weight is probably the most important lifestyle change you can make, says Dr Ronald Mensink,