|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
The Health of It All...
Cholesterol
Cholesterol in its raw form is a waxy yellow gunk. It is actually a type of fat, but it differs from most fats in that the cholesterol molecule is more like a steroid molecule. Cholesterol is essential for your body to produce steroids.
Humans make about 300 mg of cholesterol per day and this is about what we need for the body to function properly. But we also consume cholesterol in the foods that we eat. Because plants don’t produce cholesterol, any that we consume must come from animal products.
As if all this wasn’t complex enough, your body creates multiple types of cholesterol. This is because the cholesterol molecule needs to be linked with other fats in what are known as “lipid particles” (lipid is the scientific name for fats). These are created so that the cholesterol can be easily transported throughout the body in the blood stream.
Low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol is the bad guy and people with high LDL cholesterol have a higher risk of heart disease. The good stuff is HDL or high density lipoprotein cholesterol. (Remember high is good, low is bad).
There are a lot of factors that affect a person’s cholesterol profile. Genetics, exercise and smoking are factors but so is diet. Eating a diet that is high in saturated fat (or trans-fatty acid fats) increases the bad LDL cholesterol.
