High cholesterol level or hypercholesterolemia is a condition where levels of cholesterol in the bloodstream are higher that normal. Individuals are strongly advised to maintain less than 200 mg of cholesterol for every deciliter of blood. Anything higher than 240 mg/dL of blood is considered hypercholesterolemia and this increases the risk of developing plaques that accumulates in the heart blood vessels causing them to narrow and thicken and can later on result to severe problems.

Contrary to popular beliefs, hypercholesterolemia isn't caused by high-cholesterol diet alone - it is a combination and interaction of different factors. Some of these factors are controllable and very much related to one's lifestyle like diet, weight, physical activity level, stress, smoking and alcohol intake while age, gender, family history and heredity, and race are among the uncontrollable factors which also play important roles in cholesterol management. Let us take a look at how these things affect our cholesterol level.