In a starling and wake up call study it has been found that young adults are not all worried about their cholesterol levels in blood.
This is the analysis based on a 10 year study.What is surprising is that cholesterol health is better in middle-aged to older adults over the past twenty years, but they have risen in the 25-to-34 age group. The sample size was more than 2,500 adults in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area for two decades.
"However, the decline is not uniform across age groups," said study author Donna K. Arnett. "Young men and women ages 25 to 34 have not shown any significant change in total cholesterol across the study, and in the past decade they have posted at least one significant increase on some part of the survey."
And the overall picture was not altogether cheerful. More than half of all adults have readings over 200, classified as borderline "high risk" by the National Cholesterol Education Program. And more than half of those in the survey with those high cholesterol levels were unaware of their condition, the researchers said.
"The idea is that cholesterol reflects the underlying state of the arteries," said study author Howard D. Sesso, an associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. High cholesterol levels reduce the elasticity of the arteries, making them less able to expand in response to blood flow, he said.
"About a month ago we reported a similar study in women which also found the same conclusion," he said. "When you have elevated levels of cholesterol, that is a general indication of the early manifestation of cardiovascular disease."
