He high cholesterol It doesn’t always have an obvious cause. According to scientific evidence, this problem does not arise from a single habit, but from several operating at the same time.

In Mexico, the National Health and Nutrition Survey (Ensanut) Continuous 2020-2024 reveals that the 15.7% of adults report having received a medical diagnosis of hypercholesterolemia (the medical term for high cholesterol).

But there is a hidden danger: being a figure based only on self-report, the real number of affected could be much higher.

This means that thousands of people could be living with high cholesterol today. without even knowing it.

A study published in the international scientific journal Lipids in Health and Disease found that the combination more frequent and more harmful for cholesterol levels has nothing to do with any particular food.

The researchers tracked what habits shared those who developed altered cholesterol.

To measure the pattern, they constructed a score that added up various unhealthy habits.

The rule was simple: The more accumulated habits, the greater the risk of developing altered cholesterol.

Those who accumulated at least six of these habits had more than three times as likely of developing altered cholesterol compared to those who had none, according to the researchers.

ORnot in every three cases altered cholesterol in that population could be attributed directly to those habitsall modifiable, according to experts.

The habits to evaluate the pattern were seven: smokingalcohol consumption, poor diet, insufficient exercise, overweight, sedentary lifestyle and bad sleep.

The unhealthy diet was one of the three components of the dominant combination identified by the authors of the study of Lipids in Health and Disease.

The study does not point directly to eggs as a risk factor.

What the analysis identifies is a general dietary pattern—high in ultra-processed products, low in fiber and protective nutrients—as the dietary component that, along with other habits, triggers lipid risk.

In the study score, the sedentary lifestyle and physical inactivity appear as two different factors, not as one.

That means that it is not enough to not be sitting all day: a person can move occasionally and still not reaching the levels of physical activity that protect against high cholesterol.

Both factors were independently associated with increased risk of develop cholesterol altered in the study population.

And the two add to the cumulative score which, according to those in charge of developing the study, operates in a dose-response relationship: each additional unhealthy habit increases the risk.

Poor sleep quality was one of the most common habits of the seven analyzed and one of the combination most frequent identified.

Their numbers are direct: those who slept poorly had 57% more likely of developing altered cholesterol compared to those who slept well, even after ruling out other variables that could explain the result.

What makes this habit especially quiet is that few people relate it to their lipid profile.

The dream doesn’t come up in conversations about cholesterol as often as diet or exercise, although the study Lipids in Health and Disease puts him at the same level of risk as the other two.

In Mexico the problem deepens. The Ensanut Continua 2020-2024 indicates that cholesterol detection tests They are not systematic in the country.

There are people who have altered cholesterol and do not know it because no one has measured them.