What is cholesterol?

Cholesterol is a waxlike and white substance that is found in some of the foods we eat. It is also manufactured by the cells in our body, but most importantly by the liver cells. A certain amount of cholesterol is essential to maintaining good health.

It’s not only an important component of cell walls, it is essential for the body’s production of certain hormones. For most of use between 70 and 75 percent of the cholesterol in our blood is made by their liver; the other 25 to 30 percent comes from the food we eat. Your foods cholesterol, therefore, is something that you can directly affect yourself.

Your body needs fat and cholesterol in order to maintain good health. During infancy and childhood fat is essential for normal brain development. Throughout your life, it is essential to provide energy and support growth. Cholesterol is used to build the walls of cells throughout the body and for the manufacture of essential substances like hormones and vitamin D. So it is important to have at least some fat and cholesterol in your body at all times.

If cholesterol is needed for healthy bodily function, why is cholesterol bad for you! It’s simple.The answer to these questions is simple. A certain amount of cholesterol is important for your. However when blood cholesterol level exceeds 200mg/dL (milligrams per deciliter), you can be at risk for developing heart disease. It’s the reason so many of us are looking for a high cholesterol cure.

Raised total blood cholesterol is clearly a changeable heart disease risk factor. Many times heart attacks, bypass surgeries, angioplasties, and sudden cardiac deaths occur in people with total cholesterol levels above 200mg/dL. Cholesterol medication is used to help control those levels.

Now here’s a question: is it ok to eat eggs these days? Well, that shows up one of the problems, doesn’t it? Advice always seems to be changing. Right now the general advice seems to be that you don’t have to worry too much about eating eggs, whereas they used to be considered a very bad influence on your cholesterol. So who do you believe? As with all these things, it pays to look into the reasons why the advice has changed and then to apply some of your own common sense.

After all, we all love a nice egg, especially if it’s been boiled correctly using an egg timer. If you don’t, it’s a bit of guesswork to get the right consistency, but more importantly you don’t always know when the egg’s been cooked. It’s important to make sure you cook your eggs correctly, since – cholesterol aside – they can contain salmonella.

A better way to estimate risk of heart disease is to know your ratio of total cholesterol to good cholesterol. It’s not just the total amount of high cholesterol that tells you what your risk is: you really need to know what your ratio is.

Always seek your doctor’s advice for all health related issues. The information in this post is for information purposes only and is not intended to diagnose any ailment or suggest any treatment.

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Cholesterol: what is it?

So the question is, what exactly, is cholesterol? Well, it’s a sort of fatty, waxy stuff and your own liver produces it. It’s actually necessary for good health and it’s a part of every cell in your body!

There are several things that cholesterol helps our bodies to do:

 

 

• Keep the cell wall healthy

 

 

• Help the body produce enough vitamin D

 

 

• Aid in digesting, by producing stomach acids to digest fat

 

 

We need cholesterol and we produce it ourselves. You also get some from certain foods, basically from animals, like meat or dairy. Fruit and veg contain no cholesterol at all. When the body produces too much cholesterol it sits in the blood stream and eventually it can block up your blood vessels. That increases your risk of heart diseases and the ‘silent killer’, stroke.

So why are high cholesterol foods so bad?

If you eat a lot of animal fats – also called saturated fats -your body can produce too much cholesterol. And a high cholestrol level should not be ignored. Now there are various types of cholesterol and they each have a different role to play in your health.

The ‘bad’ cholesterol is called LDL, which stands for Low Density Lipoprotein. This is the one that can increase your chances of getting heart disease by clogging up your arteries. When that happens blood flow through the artery is reduced.

The ‘good’ cholesterol is called HDL. This is the opposite, so it’s High Density Lipoprotein. This actually ‘sweeps up’ the ‘bad’ cholesterol from your blood stream. Which means it’s important to know your cholesterol ratio to know whether you have a normal cholesterol level.

If you monitor your cholesterol regularly you will know when you have high cholesterol. And if you do have elevated cholesterol levels it makes sense to reduce your LDL cholesterol if you can. And if your levels are high you should do it as soon as possible.

Considering that in the region of 50% of Americans have elevated cholesterol levels, it makes sense for everyone to get their level tested and do something about it.

You should always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health professional before starting any new treatment or making any changes to existing treatment. No health information on this site, including information about herbal therapies and other dietary supplements, is regulated or evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and therefore the information should not be used to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease without the supervision of a medical doctor.

Cholesterol Blood Test

If you get a cholesterol blood test, it will have a different purpose to many other medical tests. That’s because the results are designed to help you prevent future problems. And since heart disease is just one of the problems high cholesterol can bring with it, it really is a good idea to think about getting tested.

If you didn’t already know it, high cholesterol levels are associated with health problems like hardening of the arteries, heart disease. There’s also a much higher risk of death from heart attacks.

For those reasons alone it’s worth while trying to beat cholesterol. Cholesterol testing is now considered a straightforward part of an overall preventative health care regimen and although opinions do vary, it seems that cholesterol testing is recommended every 3 to 5 years.

A cholesterol test done at the same time as other tests like HDL and LDL levels is usually called a lipid profile. Of course, if you are already on cholesterol medication you may need testing more frequently to see how you’re doing. There are three major risk categories :

Desirable: For results below 200 mg/dL that would indicate a relatively low risk of heart disease.

Borderline: Any results in the region of 200 to 240 mg/dL indicates a moderate risk of developing heart disease.

High Risk: Results above 240 mg/dL suggest that you are in a high risk category and really should do something about your cholesterol levels. Remember too, that the ratio between your HDL and LDL levels will also give you an indication of how serious the problem might be.

Testing for cholesterol isn’t difficult and it’s not invasive so if you have any worries about your cholesterol levels it’s wise to discuss them with your physician. He can arrange suitable testing and once you have the results you’ll know whether you need to make any changes to your lifestyle.

This site does not provide medical or any other health care advice, diagnosis or treatment. The site is for information purposes only and not a substitute for professional medical advice, examination, diagnosis or treatment.

Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health professional before starting any new treatment or making any changes to existing treatment.