* www.who.int- Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs)
Cholesterol is not inevitable
Cholesterol itself isn’t bad. In fact, cholesterol is just one of the many substances created and used by the human body to stay healthy. However, excess cholesterol can form plaque between layers of artery walls, making it harder for the heart to circulate blood.
For anyone can develop high blood cholesterol—everyone can take steps to lower it. High cholesterol has no signs or symptoms.
Cholesterol risk factors management
Unmanageable risk factors[1]:
- Heredity
Family history of early heart disease—father or brother diagnosed before age 55, or mother or sister diagnosed before age 65
- Age and Gender
Age—45 or older for men; 55 or older for women
Manageable risk factors:
- Lifestyle choices
- Eating foods with high saturated and trans fats
Diabetes increases LDL (Bad cholesterol) and decrease production of HDL (Good Cholesterol)
- Overworked/Stress
Some studies have shown the possible link between stress and cholesterol
Why should employers concern about employees’ cholesterol?
Employee’s health condition has an indirect impact to the companies.
That would include:
- Productivity
Employees with multiple heart disease and stroke risk factors such as high cholesterol and high blood pressure cost employers more in terms of care, absenteeism, and lost productivity than employees with one or none of these risk factors.
- Medical Cost
It is a known fact that prevention is better than cure. Sick employees will likely have high medical expenses. Many of the cholesterol medications aren’t expensive. However, if long term treatment is needed, the overall expenses will increase.
Why prevention is the key?
Thousands of heart attacks and strokes could be averted if people aged 45–74 had an absolute cardiovascular risk assessment (heart health check) and those at high risk had their risk factors well managed according to existing guidelines.
A full heart health check allows therapy to be targeted to those who would most benefit. Not only is this good clinical practice, it makes sound economic sense. Employers can evaluate the benefits of offering cholesterol screening and control programs on employee’s welfare. Therefore, by preventing cardiovascular risks, they tackle medical costs, absenteeism and loss of productivity related to such risk factors.
Prevention goes beyond detecting symptoms.
You can prevent risk factors by raising awareness and encouraging employees to adopt a long-lasting healthy hygiene. Heredity is not a fatality as we can mitigate controllable risk factors by raising awareness and tackling high cholesterol inducing lifestyle:
- Diet: avoiding the trans fats, saturated fat, sugar…
- Overweight: controlling overweight helps prevent LDL (bad) cholesterol level to raise and help HDL (good) cholesterol level go up. Regularly check blood pressure.
- Physical activity: exercising help lower LDL cholesterol and raise HDL cholesterol
- Smoking: lowers HDL (good) cholesterol level and damages blood vessels that become more likely to collect fatty deposits
- Type 2 diabetes can lower “good” cholesterol (HDL) levels and raise triglycerides while a high blood pressure often shows up in people who have cholesterol. High blood pressure and high cholesterol can share many of the same risk factors (unhealthy diet, aging, obesity) and both conditions are risk factors for heart diseases.
Medical check-ups routine combined with an adequate lifestyle monitoring can lead to a better health condition and a healthier aging. It is possible to prevent high cholesterol to appear for employees who have family history or a challenging lifestyle by adopting the right behaviour.
Henner is here to Care
Henner believes prevention is key to lower health costs related to chronic diseases. Besides having a good medical coverage for employees, company can also provide employers worksite cholesterol screening and control / lifestyle educational programs.
Get in touch with us today to find your solution!
[1] Third Report of the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) Expert Panel on Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Cholesterol in Adults (Adult Treatment Panel III) Final Report