High cholesterol and diabetes are both conditions reflected by having too much of something in your body. People with high cholesterol levels have too much bad cholesterol and too many triglycerides in the bloodstream, while those who suffer from diabetes have elevated sugar levels in the blood. But are these two conditions somehow connected to one another?
What is diabetes?
Diabetes is a medical condition characterized by elevated sugar levels in the bloodstream. Your body produces a hormone called insulin. Insulin is formed inside the pancreas, and delivered through the bloodstream, to make sure that the sugar in your blood enters your cells.
Therefore, the main role of insulin is to make sure that there is as little sugar in the blood as possible. As this happens, blood sugar levels drop, and the pancreas doesn’t make that much insulin.
Another important term for understanding diabetes is “glucose”. Glucose is a sugar that gives your cells energy that your tissues and muscles require. Your body takes its glucose from both your liver and the food you feed it. Your liver can also store glucose to use it at a later time, but insulin can also transport it to the cells in need of it.
There are two main forms of diabetes
- Type 1 diabetes has an unknown underlying cause. The immune system destroys the cells that produce insulin in the pancreas, when this happens, your body is unable to transport sugar, so it just stays in your blood.
- Type 2 diabetes means that your cells resist the action of insulin, and the pancreas isn’t able to produce extra quantities that can counteract this resistant. The result is the same: sugar level building up inside the bloodstream.
Insulin and cholesterol
The link between cholesterol and insulin is still a subject of research, but there is evidence out there suggesting that high levels of insulin in the bloodstream can directly impact the amount of cholesterol particles in the blood.
People who suffer from diabetes have a lot of insulin in their blood, which causes LDL cholesterol levels to rise, therefore increasing the risk of plaque formation on the artery walls. Diabetes is also known to increase the level of triglycerides in the blood, which is another type of bad cholesterol that takes a toll on your health.
High cholesterol can often be a sign of diabetes as well. There is a link between people with insulin resistance and those who have high cholesterol levels. In fact, a lot of doctors that notice a person has high LDL levels will want to pay close attention to the amount of sugar in their blood.
Those who don’t exceed the healthy threshold of sugar in the blood are also less likely to end up having high cholesterol, but that’s not always the rule. Consider the fact that cholesterol is mostly linked to fat consumption, while diabetes is linked to large sugar intakes.
Type 2 diabetes
Medical research suggests that people who have a lot of sugar in their bloodstream generally have elevated triglycerides as well. However, even people who have their blood sugar under control can have decreased HDL and high LDL levels.
According to the American Diabetes Association, diabetic patients should have their cholesterol levels measured once every year, even more often if they are not taking cholesterol-lowering medication.
Those who have diabetes without any coronary heart disease should try to keep their LDL levels below the 100 mg/dL threshold, with HDL levels at least 50 mg/dL. Those who have both diabetes and coronary heart disease should make sure that their LDL levels are a maximum of 70 mg/dL (the lower, the better).
Handling high cholesterol and diabetes
A combination of the two can be deadly, make no mistake. Just keeping one under control doesn’t guarantee a decrease in the other. The good news is that both of these conditions can be kept under control with medication, but particularly by adopting healthy lifestyle habits.
When you have diabetes and high cholesterol, the main focus should be lowering the risk of stroke and heart disease, through steps such as:
- Keep a close eye on your blood sugar levels, as well as your cholesterol numbers. Stay informed on how low these levels should be in order to not be considered life-threatening and take the tests required as often as the doctor recommends it.
- A good piece of advice for those who have high cholesterol and diabetes is to balance diet with physical exercise. Try to take a walk after each meal.
- Whenever you clean the house, pick up the pace so that you can combine some exercising with your house chores.
- People lose their muscle tone with age, which causes a decrease in health quality. Lifting up things can tone your muscles, and you don’t even have to go to the gym for that. This activity can help with your resistance training, and helps keep cholesterol under control.
Conclusion
Diabetes can lead to lower levels of good cholesterol, while also causing an elevated number of triglycerides to find their way to the artery walls. Studies haven’t pinpointed the exact way in which these two health problems can influence one another, although there are studies suggesting that cholesterol, insulin, and blood sugar often interact with one another inside the bloodstream, and can influence their reactions.
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