Health & Wellness Heart Health

Understanding Cholesterol and Heart Disease

A practical guide to lipid numbers, cardiovascular risk, prevention, and treatment decisions

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Quick Course Facts
18
Self-paced, Online, Lessons
18
Videos and/or Narrated Presentations
6.2
Approximate Hours of Course Media
About the Understanding Cholesterol and Heart Disease Course

Understanding Cholesterol and Heart Disease is a Health & Wellness course designed to help you make sense of cholesterol, lipid panels, cardiovascular risk, and prevention choices. Through clear lessons on biology, lifestyle strategies, and treatment decisions, you will learn how to discuss heart health with more confidence and make informed next steps with your care team.

Build A Clear Heart Health Plan With Cholesterol Knowledge

  • Learn a practical guide to lipid numbers, including LDL, HDL, triglycerides, total cholesterol, ApoB, Lipoprotein(a), and calcium scoring.
  • Understand how cholesterol contributes to plaque buildup, atherosclerosis, heart attack, and stroke risk.
  • Explore nutrition, exercise, sleep, weight, smoking, alcohol, and metabolic health strategies that support prevention.
  • Compare lifestyle changes, statins, non-statin medications, and combination therapy so treatment decisions feel less confusing.

A practical Health & Wellness course on cholesterol, cardiovascular risk, prevention, and treatment decisions.

This course gives you a grounded, step-by-step look at Understanding Cholesterol and Heart Disease, starting with why cholesterol matters and how the body makes and uses it. You will learn what common lipid numbers mean, how to read a lipid panel without guessing, and why cardiovascular risk depends on more than one lab result.

As the course progresses, you will examine how plaque forms inside arteries and how atherosclerosis can lead to heart attack and stroke. You will also explore family history, inherited cholesterol disorders, advanced markers, diabetes, blood pressure, and metabolic health so you can see the bigger picture behind prevention and treatment decisions.

The Health & Wellness strategies in this course focus on practical change. You will study nutrition patterns, fats, fiber, protein, carbohydrates, exercise, weight, sleep, smoking, and alcohol in a way that connects directly to everyday choices and long-term heart health.

By the end, you will have a clearer understanding of cholesterol numbers, cardiovascular risk, prevention options, and treatment conversations. You will leave with a personal heart health action plan and the confidence to track progress, ask better questions, and work more effectively with your care team.

Course Lessons

Full lesson breakdown

Lessons are organized by topic area and each includes descriptive copy for search visibility and student clarity.

Foundations

2 lessons

Lesson 1: Why Cholesterol Matters for Heart Health

18 min Preview
Cholesterol matters because it is both necessary for normal body function and closely tied to the development of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. This lesson explains what cholesterol is, why i…

Lesson 2: Cholesterol Basics: What the Body Makes and Uses

17 min
Cholesterol is not simply something to avoid. It is a waxy lipid the body needs to build cell membranes, make certain hormones, produce vitamin D, and create bile acids that help digest fats. Most blo…

Understanding Lipid Numbers

2 lessons

Lesson 3: LDL, HDL, Triglycerides, and Total Cholesterol

22 min
This lesson explains the four lipid numbers most people see on a standard lipid panel: LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, and total cholesterol. Learners will understand what each number…

Lesson 4: How to Read a Lipid Panel Without Guesswork

21 min
In this lesson, Professor Amanda Davis teaches a practical, step-by-step way to read a standard lipid panel without overreacting to one number or ignoring the bigger picture. Students learn what total…

Cholesterol and Disease Mechanisms

2 lessons

Lesson 5: How Plaque Forms Inside Arteries

20 min
Plaque formation, or atherosclerosis, is a slow disease process that begins inside the artery wall, not simply as cholesterol stuck to the surface of a blood vessel. LDL particles can enter the artery…

Lesson 6: From Atherosclerosis to Heart Attack and Stroke

23 min
This lesson explains how cholesterol-rich plaque develops inside arteries and how a long, silent process can suddenly become a heart attack or stroke. Students learn the difference between gradual nar…

Cardiovascular Risk

3 lessons

Lesson 7: Risk Factors Beyond Cholesterol

22 min
Cholesterol matters, but it is only one part of cardiovascular risk. This lesson explains the major non-cholesterol factors that raise or lower a person's chance of heart attack, stroke, and related v…

Lesson 8: Family History and Inherited Cholesterol Disorders

19 min
This lesson explains how family history changes cardiovascular risk assessment and when inherited cholesterol disorders should be suspected. Learners will distinguish a common family pattern of heart …

Lesson 9: Advanced Markers: ApoB, Lipoprotein(a), and Calcium Scoring

24 min
This lesson explains three advanced cardiovascular risk tools that can clarify risk when standard cholesterol numbers do not tell the whole story: apolipoprotein B, lipoprotein(a), and coronary artery…

Lifestyle Strategies

3 lessons

Lesson 10: Nutrition Patterns That Support Healthy Cholesterol

23 min
This lesson explains how nutrition patterns can support healthier LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, inflammation, and overall cardiovascular risk. Rather than treating cholesterol as a s…

Lesson 11: Fats, Fiber, Protein, and Carbohydrates in Practice

22 min
This lesson turns nutrition advice into practical choices learners can use at breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and grocery shopping. The focus is not on chasing a perfect diet, but on understanding w…

Lesson 12: Exercise, Weight, Sleep, Smoking, and Alcohol

21 min
This lesson connects everyday habits beyond diet to cholesterol patterns and cardiovascular risk. Learners will see how exercise, weight change, sleep, smoking, and alcohol affect LDL cholesterol, HDL…

Connected Conditions

1 lesson

Lesson 13: Diabetes, Blood Pressure, and Metabolic Health

20 min
This lesson explains why diabetes, high blood pressure, insulin resistance, abdominal weight gain, high triglycerides, and low HDL often travel together and why that cluster raises cardiovascular risk…

Treatment Decisions

3 lessons

Lesson 14: When Lifestyle Changes Are Not Enough

18 min
When lifestyle changes do not lower cardiovascular risk enough, treatment decisions shift from effort alone to a structured risk conversation. This lesson explains how clinicians decide when medicatio…

Lesson 15: Statins: Benefits, Risks, and Common Questions

23 min
Statins are the most commonly used medicines for lowering LDL cholesterol and reducing the risk of heart attack and stroke. This lesson explains how statins work, who usually benefits most, what reali…

Lesson 16: Non-Statin Medications and Combination Therapy

21 min
This lesson explains where non-statin cholesterol medications fit after lifestyle changes and statin therapy have been considered. It focuses on practical treatment decisions: when to add another medi…

Long-Term Management

2 lessons

Lesson 17: Tracking Progress and Working With Your Care Team

19 min
This lesson focuses on how cholesterol management becomes a long-term partnership, not a one-time lab result. Students learn how to track LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, medication use…

Lesson 18: Building a Personal Heart Health Action Plan

20 min
This lesson turns cholesterol knowledge into a practical long-term action plan. Learners will organize their personal risk information, define measurable goals, choose sustainable lifestyle steps, pre…

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About Your Instructor
Professor Amanda Davis

Professor Amanda Davis

Professor Amanda Davis guides this AI-built Virversity course with a clear, practical teaching style.