Introduction to Cholesterol
When many people discuss the term cholesterol, they assume that this is a bad thing that is somehow caused by external circumstances. If you could eliminate those circumstances, your body would have no more cholesterol and you would be fine.
That is not quite correct though. Cholesterol is actually present in every healthy human body. It is a fatty substance produced by the liver, and is involved in the production of hormones and the distribution of fats from the liver to and from other organs.
The main types of cholesterol are: LDL, or Low Density Lipoproteins, and HDL, or High Density Lipoproteins. HDL is often called the "good guy". Its job is to carry fatty material from the rest of the body back to the liver, where it has to be dealt with, either by breaking it down, or discarding it. The "bad guy" is LDL. This type of cholesterol has the function of distributing fats from the liver to areas in the body where it is needed (under normal circumstances).
The bad news is that there are several factors, both external and internal that could cause HDL to drop below an acceptable level, and LDL to rise to a dangerous level. We will look at a few of those below.
The biggest single cause of cholesterol imbalance is probably just eating wrong, and eating too much for your lifestyle. The body's cholesterol system can not cope with all this excess fat, it ends up in the bloodstream, starts to clog your arteries, eventually breaks up and causes a heart attack.
Another important contributing factor to cholesterol imbalance is smoking. Not many people know that cigarettes contain a highly toxic substance known as acrolein. This stuff is also present in pesticides and chemical weapons! It suppresses the normal functioning of LDL and HDL. One the one hand HDL no longer effectively carries excess fat from other areas of the body back to the liver to be destroyed or recycled, and LDL is oxidized in the whole process, changing it cellular structure and causing it to malfunction.
Genetic factors can play a further detrimental role in the normal functioning of our cholesterol system. It has been shown that up to 70% of people has a genetic defect causing the normal balance of good and bad cholesterol in their bodies to become disturbed. The result is either too much LDL, or too little HDL, and in turn the body is not able to deal with excess fat in a normal way.
On its own, any of the above factors will probably not be catastrophic. But when they are combined, as it very often happens in our society with too much food, too little exercise and lots of stress and smoking, it produces a deadly mix. No wonder cholesterol has become one of the major killers world wide.
That is not quite correct though. Cholesterol is actually present in every healthy human body. It is a fatty substance produced by the liver, and is involved in the production of hormones and the distribution of fats from the liver to and from other organs.
The main types of cholesterol are: LDL, or Low Density Lipoproteins, and HDL, or High Density Lipoproteins. HDL is often called the "good guy". Its job is to carry fatty material from the rest of the body back to the liver, where it has to be dealt with, either by breaking it down, or discarding it. The "bad guy" is LDL. This type of cholesterol has the function of distributing fats from the liver to areas in the body where it is needed (under normal circumstances).
The bad news is that there are several factors, both external and internal that could cause HDL to drop below an acceptable level, and LDL to rise to a dangerous level. We will look at a few of those below.
The biggest single cause of cholesterol imbalance is probably just eating wrong, and eating too much for your lifestyle. The body's cholesterol system can not cope with all this excess fat, it ends up in the bloodstream, starts to clog your arteries, eventually breaks up and causes a heart attack.
Another important contributing factor to cholesterol imbalance is smoking. Not many people know that cigarettes contain a highly toxic substance known as acrolein. This stuff is also present in pesticides and chemical weapons! It suppresses the normal functioning of LDL and HDL. One the one hand HDL no longer effectively carries excess fat from other areas of the body back to the liver to be destroyed or recycled, and LDL is oxidized in the whole process, changing it cellular structure and causing it to malfunction.
Genetic factors can play a further detrimental role in the normal functioning of our cholesterol system. It has been shown that up to 70% of people has a genetic defect causing the normal balance of good and bad cholesterol in their bodies to become disturbed. The result is either too much LDL, or too little HDL, and in turn the body is not able to deal with excess fat in a normal way.
On its own, any of the above factors will probably not be catastrophic. But when they are combined, as it very often happens in our society with too much food, too little exercise and lots of stress and smoking, it produces a deadly mix. No wonder cholesterol has become one of the major killers world wide.
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Would you like to learn more about foods that lower cholesterol? Read other article at cholesterol diet
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