LatinaLista — Cholesterol is a word that most have learned that having too much of it is a bad thing but is it really understood? And if a person does have high cholesterol, do most people know how to lower it? Or even how they got it in the first place?
It would seem that not too many Latinos understand cholesterol or take it seriously enough. According to the American Heart Association, more than half of Latinos and more than a third of Latinas have high cholesterol. It’s something that leads to heart disease, stroke and heart attacks. As it stands, 1 in 5 (20.8%) Latino deaths in the U.S. every year is attributed to heart disease.
A new national awareness campaign, Cholesterol Counts, created an online poll that they hope encourages everyone to get their cholesterol count. They’ve assembled factoids specific for the Latino population. Among them is the fact that 65 percent of Latinos polled didn’t know or couldn’t even remember what was their cholesterol count.
Not good for a demographic who suffer more from diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure than other groups.
Which leaves one final question: You know your cholesterol count?
