Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Cholesterol The Good The Bad and The Ugly

Cholesterol The Good The Bad and The Ugly

In today’s world, almost everything is free… not that
everything has no price. It just seems that we have reached
the era where we become more aware of our health conditions.
Thus, it seems to be the era of everything that is -free.
Try scanning every available product in your local grocery
and you will see what I mean.

Your bread is bromate-free; your yoghurt is fat-free; your
cooking oil is cholesterol-free; your canned soup is
preservative-free; and the list goes on and on. Now you are
beginning to wonder about the next -free commodity that you
would encounter.

This is not exactly bad. In fact, health experts encourage
us to be more sensitive about the foods we eat and the
nutrients that we get from them. However, not everything
that is –free is healthy. Our bodies need certain
substances to be able to function well.

Let us take a look at cholesterol for instance.

Very simply defined, cholesterol is a fatty substance that
occurs naturally in the blood, cell walls, and most body
tissues. Cholesterol is made by the liver, and it enters the
body via foods rich in saturated fat. There are two types
of cholesterol; these are what they termed as the good and
bad cholesterol. Like the literary split personality of
Jekyll and Hyde, it has a good side because it is needed for
certain important body functions. But for many people,
cholesterol also has an evil side. When present in excessive
amounts, it can injure blood vessels, cause heart attacks,
and stroke.

Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) is the "bad" cholesterol.

This is the form in which cholesterol is carried into the
blood and is the main cause of harmful fatty buildup in
arteries. The higher the LDL cholesterol levels in the
blood, the greater the heart disease risk. On the other
hand, High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) is the “good”
cholesterol.

This "good" cholesterol carries blood cholesterol back to
the liver, where it can be eliminated. HDL helps prevent a
cholesterol buildup in blood vessels. Low HDL levels
increase heart disease risk.

So before you go into your cholesterol deprivation program,
remember that cholesterol is essential for human life. It
builds and repairs cells, it is used to produce sex hormones
like estrogen and testosterone, it is converted to bile
acids to help you digest food and it is found in large
amounts in brain and nerve tissue.

Cholesterol The Good The Bad and The Ugly

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