Cholesterol: the good, the bad and the deadly

Ever since researchers figured out that there was a link between it and heart disease, modern society has made cholesterol a pariah, a dirty thing to be avoided at all costs. For the past several decades, lowering your cholesterol has become a hot topic for newspaper and magazine articles and something the talking heads on the morning news shows can yammer on about to a rapt audience. Lowering your cholesterol has gone on to become a national pastime , yet most people could probably not even tell you what cholesterol really is, or what role it plays in your body aside from increasing your chances of developing heart disease.  Is cholesterol really all that bad and worth all the bad hype that it receives? Let us take a further look.

What is cholesterol?

Cholesterol is a wax like substance that your liver produces which your body uses for a number of different things. Cholesterol plays a role in the building and maintaining of cell membranes, helps in the digestive process, and even facilitates in the proper functioning of your sex hormones. Several major organs such as the brain and liver contain high concentrations of the stuff and it is also found in the nerves, blood and bile.

The good and the bad

There are two different types of cholesterol found in the body: the low-density lipoproteins (LDLs) which are considered “bad” and the high-density lipoproteins (HDLs) which are considered “good”.

LDLs are cholesterols that mainly come from the different foods that we eat, especially foods that are animal in origin. These are considered “bad cholesterols” because the body really has no use for LDLs and they just end up clogging up the arteries and causing various heart diseases.

HDLs or “good cholesterols” actually aid in the removal of the bad cholesterols by shuttling them out of the body. Generally speaking, the higher your HDL count is, the lower your LDL count is going to be making you at less risk for developing a deadly heart disease. However, HDLs do not have a tendency to stay good and can be converted into LDLs by the liver once they travel through the bloodstream. How often and why this conversion happens has never been fully discovered.

Now that you know the difference between the good and the bad cholesterols, and their link to deadly heart disease, it is now important that you understand that a healthy balance must be kept between these two different types of cholesterol. Since LDLs mostly comes from the foods that we eat, it is important to understand the importance of a healthy diet and the role it plays in controlling heart disease.

4 factors that can raise your cholesterol:

1. Eating animal based foods: These are loaded with bad cholesterols
2. Sugar intake: research indicates that too much sugar can also increase your cholesterol levels.
3. Alcohol: excessive alcohol has also been linked to the rise in bad cholesterol.
4. Stress: undue stress can also prompt the body to produce more natural cholesterols, thereby raising your overall cholesterol levels.

In conclusion, in order to function properly, our bodies actually need cholesterol, however it is important to understand that a safe balance of the good and the bad needs to be maintained in order to keep deadly heart disease at bay.