A Lesson in Cholesterol

September may be a couple of weeks away, but it’s not too soon to give your employees a jumpstart on National Cholesterol Education month.

When it comes to pinpointing and addressing serious health issues, sooner is always better, after all, and cholesterol is something that deserves as much attention as possible.

Why? Because, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 102 million Americans over the age of 20 have cholesterol levels that are over the healthy range. Of those, 35 million have levels high enough to put them at high risk for heart disease.

Whether high cholesterol is primarily due to concrete factors such as gender, ethnicity, or heredity, or by changeable ones like an unhealthy diet and sedentary lifestyle, it’s important to know it exists so that people can take all steps possible to keep their numbers in check.

And because there are usually no symptoms of high cholesterol, the only way to determine whether or not there’s a problem is to get screened. A simple blood test can put your employees on the road to bringing those numbers down and decreasing their heart disease risk.

The National Cholesterol Education Program recommends a cholesterol check every five years for adults (over age 20), and for young adults who have risk factors such as obesity, smoking, high blood pressure, and family history of high cholesterol.

Brush up on the basics of cholesterol so you can pass the power of knowledge on to your employees. A few facts from the CDC: