Cholesterol The Natural and Essential Part Of Your Body

by Meng

Do you know that cholesterol is essential to the production of sex hormones? Regulate mood and help the body deal with stress ? What we hear these days are all the negative aspect of cholesterol and most people are mis-informed about the important role of cholesterol. There are 2 types of cholesterol namely the dietary cholesterol and the blood cholesterol

Not many people know that our liver produces cholesterol. And cholesterol can be either beneficial to us or expose us to the risk of heart disease and stroke. We have heard of the bad cholesterol that plaque our vein and artery and increase the risk of heart disease and stroke and the good cholesterol that keep our vascular system healthy. It is important to understand both the “good” and “bad” cholesterol so we can tackle high cholesterol problem via informed lifestyle, diet and exercise changes.

The difference between dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol is that dietary cholesterol is ingested from our food, absorbed into our bloodstream through our digestive system. Blood cholesterol is produce from our very own liver, circulate within our vascular system.

The cholesterol that we take in by the foods we eat has less affect on our cholesterol blood rest than our family history, presence of disease such as diabetes, thyroid or kidney disease and also on the lifestyle choices we make such as smoking, our exercise routine, and our body weight.

However, there is a strong link between the level of bad cholesterol (LDL) and the saturated fats and trans fats we consume. When abundant amount of meat, egg yolks and foods that contain hydrogenated fats is consume, the level of bad cholesterol will increase. We do want our HDL cholesterol, the good cholesterol, to be high instead of LDL cholesterol to keep our vascular system healthy. It is advisable to limit the intake of deep fried foods like breaded or fried chicken, crackers, french fries, doughnuts. Baking products like cakes and cookies are also source of high trans fat that that need to be avoided.

Lowering bad (LDL) cholesterol level is important, but it is equally important to take enough amounts of calcium, protein, zinc, iron and B-vitamins etc. Do not avoid the lean meat, fish and eggs in order to lower the cholesterol level, rather, it is more important to lower the bad cholesterol by avoiding or lower the amount of trans fat and saturated fat.

Having high HDL cholesterol is healthy for our body because it helps to break-up the plaque that high levels of LDL cholesterol help to form in arteries leading to the heart and brain. HDL cholesterol can also help to reduce LDL cholesterol and get rid of it from our systems.

Now you know that not only is some cholesterol naturally occurring in our bodies because it is produced in our liver, HDL cholesterol is also an essential part to keeping our hearts and brains healthy.

About the Author:
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