Cholesterol All You Need to Know !

What is your cholesterol? Although awareness of the dangers of high cholesterol has increased dramatically over the past two decades, there are still many theories out there. The biggest one, although it is gradually dissipating, is that all cholesterol is created in the same way. In fact, as many people are beginning to understand, cholesterol in our blood is transported to several different particles, the main ones being high density lipoproteins (HDL) and low density lipoproteins (LDL). These two types of particles have completely different effects on blood vessels and their probability of clogging. Simply put, HDL protects your body from heart disease, while LDL can cause it

High cholesterol is a serious health problem. It is an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD), which half of all men and one third of all women will contract at some point in their lives

Cholesterol performs three main functions:

• Helps create the outer layer of cells
• It is the bile acid that works to digest food in the intestine
• It allows the body to produce vitamin D and hormones, such as estrogen in women and testosterone in men

Without cholesterol, none of these functions would take place and without these functions humans would not exist

The Truth About Cholesterol 

Another theory about cholesterol is that the healthiest cholesterol level you can have is zero. If people didn't have cholesterol, they would die, and so would the human species. Men would not produce testosterone without it, women would not produce estrogen and without them humans would not produce the next generation. Their intestines were unable to digest food without cholesterol and their cells were unable to create their external coating known as the plasma membrane. So cholesterol itself is not bad. The downside is having too much and transporting it into LDL particles, which are more likely to deposit it in wrong places, such as the walls of the arteries

What Is Cholesterol?

Cholesterol is a fat or lipid. It is also a sterol, from which steroid hormones and bile acids are created. Cholesterol is an important component of the plasma membrane in eukaryotic cells. It monitors the physical state of the double layer of phospholipids and plays a crucial role in the formation of membrane microdomains. Cholesterol is randomly distributed in cells and membranes and plays an essential role in the formation of the domains of the lateral membrane, often called "lipid rafts"

These are some of the things we need cholesterol in the body for:

• Brain synapses: Synapses, the vital connections between nerve cells in the brain and elsewhere, are made up almost entirely of cholesterol
• Vitamin D: This is a very important vitamin, not only necessary for creating healthy bones, but is now also known to protect against various types of cancer. By the action of sunlight on our skin, vitamin D is synthesized from cholesterol
• Cell membranes: All the cells in our body need cholesterol in their cell membranes. Without it they would disintegrate, since cholesterol provides structural integrity
• Sex hormones: Cholesterol is a key building block for most sex hormones
• Bile: Cholesterol is a key component of bile, which is released from the gallbladder to help digest food. Indeed, many. Gallstones are made entirely of crystallized cholesterol

Cholesterol does not dissolve in water; therefore, it does not dissolve in blood. This means that it must be transported throughout the body within a small transport molecule known as lipoprotein

You Mean My Body Makes Cholesterol?

Cholesterol is so important for the body that it does it on its own: Mother Nature does not allow humans to get what they need only from the diet

Almost every cell in the body can produce the cholesterol it needs. However, the liver is a particularly efficient cholesterol factory, efficient enough to afford to export much of what it produces. The liver packs most of its cholesterol into lipoproteins which can be delivered to cells throughout the body, providing a supplement to what each cell can produce on its own (such as the testicles in men and the ovaries in women, where it is found create sex hormones) Your body has the ability to regulate the amount of cholesterol in the blood, producing more when your diet does not supply adequate quantities. The regulation of cholesterol synthesis is a strictly controlled elegant process

Why You Need to Know

When patients come to me because they have high cholesterol, it always amazes me how interested they are not only in the "how they can improve" part, but also in why they have a problem. I think knowing the two goes hand in hand. Knowing how cholesterol is produced in the body and how cholesterol is absorbed from food is the basis for understanding how the right food plan and, when necessary, drugs for lowering cholesterol are effective