Unfortunately, you can't control all of the factors that may influence your cholesterols levels. You can't control your age, you can't control your gender, or your genes. However, these natural risk factors can be minimized or even eliminated by making the right lifestyle changes.

You can't turn back the clock. Total blood cholesterol and LDL cholesterol tend to increase with age.

You can't change being a man or a woman. Men tend to have higher LDL levels and lower HDL levels than women, especially before age 50. After age 50, when women are in their post-menopausal years, decreasing amounts of estrogen are thought to cause the LDL level to rise.

You can't slip out of your genes. Some people seem to be able to eat lots of fatty food without having high cholesterol. But other people have to be very careful about what they eat. This difference may be caused by differences in their genes. Your genes influence how high your LDL cholesterol is by affecting how fast LDL is made and removed from the blood.

Although you can't change these risk factors, knowing what they are can help you realize the importance of reducing your risk in other ways.

Men will develop heart disease 10 years earlier than women, and are more likely to die from it in the prime of their life, read on...Next>>