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Good and Bad Cholesterol
 Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death of both men and women in the USA, and the UK is fallowing closely behind. Statistic has shown that heart failure is increasing in the UK. The question of the day is, why?
The basic fast food or process food diet is the main contributor. Many of us are walking around with our body's clogged up because of the poor choice of foods we eat. Like kebab, KFC, BIG Mac, BK, coffee, tea, bear, wine, sugar and the dairy products with all the growth stimulating hormones in them, and so on.
Have you heard about good cholesterol and bad cholesterol? Allow me to explain what role cholesterol production, distribution and consumption play in the vast scheme of heart disease. The human liver manufactures something like 1,000mg of cholesterol per day, even if you consume no cholesterol at all. Of that amount, about 800mg becomes bile salts, which is necessary for the digestion of fats, that leaves about 200 available for other functions like maintaining the outer membrane of the cell wall, the membrane of the nucleus, the mitochondria, and the lysosomes. Cholesterol is also converted into Vitamin D by sunlight, and it is the precursor for steroid hormones like the testosterone we need to grow, and the estrogen women need to be feminine.
So, cholesterol per say is not bad; for all the cells in the body need cholesterol to function properly, it is the oxidise low density lipoprotein (LDL) that can be harmful. LDL is also sometimes called bad cholesterol; it is composed of a small amount of protein and a large amount of cholesterol. Normally LDLs transport cholesterol from the liver into the blood stream to the cells that need it, but if the levels of LDLs in the blood are too high, some cholesterol will be left back in the blood as LDLs travels through the body's thoroughfare.
The cholesterol that is often referred to as good cholesterol is called high density lipo-protein (HDL); it has a higher proportion of protein than LDLs and relatively little cholesterol. it is called good cholesterol because it removes the excess cholesterol from the blood stream that was left behind by the LDLs. Moreover, HDLs are associated with decreased risk of coronary heart disease and arteriosclerosis. However, when HDLs fails to remove all the excess cholesterol left behind by the LDLs, overtime it begins to build up on the artery walls with other fats and waste. This built up is called plaque. |
