You are receiving this information because you recently had a blood test to measure your cholesterol. As part of this process, we have then performed a risk assessment to help us gather information on your risk of developing cardiovascular disease – this includes things like heart attacks, strokes, and peripheral vascular disease (issues with the blood vessels).
However, cholesterol is only one part of this risk and we have used other factors to calculate this risk. Some of these are things we cannot change, and some things we can change!
Whenever we run this calculation, it will never be zero – and as we get older however hard we work on the other risk factors, the risk level will increase. The number given will be a number out of 100 (this is the highest) and indicates what your risk of developing cardiovascular disease will be in the next 10 years. The number given to you will put you into one of the following categories.
Low risk - Less than 10%
This meams you have less than a one in 10 chance of developing cardiovascular disease in the next 10 years.
Moderate risk - 10 - 20%
This means out of 10 people with this risk, 1-2 of these people would develop cardiovascular disease.
High risk - More than 20%
This means out of 10 people with this risk, more than 2 of these people would develop cardiovascular disease.
Cholesterol is one part of lowering your risk. Alongside this, there are a number of lifestyle changes that you can do to reduce this risk.
This includes:
Almost everybody will benefit from these changes , even if your risk is low. One option would be to implement these lifestyle changes, and then recheck your cholesterol in 6 – 12 months at which point we can recalculate your risk.