Nov
9
Introduction to Cholesterol
November 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment
A lot of people is under the impression that cholesterol is something that does not occur in a normal body. That it’s caused by extraneous factors, and if you could get rid of those factors, you will no longer have any cholesterol in your body.
That is not quite correct though. Cholesterol is actually present in every healthy human body. It is a fatty substance produced by the liver, and is involved in the production of hormones and the distribution of fats from the liver to and from other organs.
There are two major types of cholesterol. LDL or Low Density Lipoproteins, and HDL or High Density Lipoproteins. LDL is considered to be the “bad” guy. It carriers fatty deposits from the liver to other parts of the body where it is (normally) needed. The “good” guy here is HDL, which carries excess fatty deposits back from all over the body to the liver where it is recycled or discarded.
Unfortunately in real life there are a couple of factor, both caused by ourselves or by circumstances outside our control, which disturb the normal balance between LDL and HDL, causing the system to malfunction, and fat to start building up in our arteries.
One of the major causes of dangerous cholesterol levels is simply eating too much, specifically eating too much fatty food. In our time we don’t normally get the same amount of exercise as our forefathers, therefore the body has now other way to copy with all this fat than to store it somewhere. This causes a buildup of LDL cholesterol in the bloodstream, which eventually causes something called plaque. This is similar to the plaque on teeth, but not the same. It can become brittle, break off and clog your arteries.
Smoking is another major cause of cholesterol. Cigarettes contain a chemical toxin called acrolein. This is a highly dangerous substance, and can also be found in chemical weapons and pesticides! It interferes in the way that both LDL and HDL carries out its work in the body. HDL is no longer able to carry excess fat from the rest of the body to the liver to be dealt with, and LDL becomes oxidized, its cellular structure changes, and it starts to function abnormally.
Something that not a lot of us know either, is the role of genetic factors in all of this. For a reason we don’t quite understand yet, about 70% of people suffer from a genetic disorder causing the production of good and bad cholesterol to become out of balance. Too much bad cholesterol – too little good cholesterol. And the system basically collapses.
Acting alone, a single one of the factors mentioned above might not be deadly. When they work in conjunction however, they form a lethal mix that results in the death of more people in America than anything else. Cholesterol is also one of the major causes of death world wide.
Would you like to learn more about natural treatment high cholesterol levels? Read other article at cholesterol diet
categories: cholesterol,diet,foods,treatment,eating,exercise
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