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.
Technically this is not correct. In fact, cholesterol is completely normal. Every human body contains cholesterol. It is a substance manufactured by the liver. Its function is involved with the movement of fatty material from the liver to other organs and parts of the body, and back.
The main types of cholesterol are: LDL, or Low Density Lipoproteins, and HDL, or High Density Lipoproteins. HDL is often called the "good guy". Its job is to carry fatty material from the rest of the body back to the liver, where it has to be dealt with, either by breaking it down, or discarding it. The "bad guy" is LDL. This type of cholesterol has the function of distributing fats from the liver to areas in the body where it is needed (under normal circumstances).
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 most important causes of cholesterol levels going haywire is to put it bluntly: eating too much, and eating the wrong food. In times gone by, our forebears had a more active lifestyle. If they ate a lot of fatty food, the body used that to provide energy, and no harmful substances were stored, no balances disturbed. In our time we eat way too much fatty food, which our bodies don't need, and has no other plan with than to store it in the form of fat. The balance of HDL and LDL in our bodies becomes disturbed, and this results in the build-up of fatty tissue in our arteries, often clogging them.
Another important contributing factor to cholesterol imbalance is smoking. Not many people know that cigarettes contain a highly toxic substance known as acrolein. This stuff is also present in pesticides and chemical weapons! It suppresses the normal functioning of LDL and HDL. One the one hand HDL no longer effectively carries excess fat from other areas of the body back to the liver to be destroyed or recycled, and LDL is oxidized in the whole process, changing it cellular structure and causing it to malfunction.
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. - 32002
Technically this is not correct. In fact, cholesterol is completely normal. Every human body contains cholesterol. It is a substance manufactured by the liver. Its function is involved with the movement of fatty material from the liver to other organs and parts of the body, and back.
The main types of cholesterol are: LDL, or Low Density Lipoproteins, and HDL, or High Density Lipoproteins. HDL is often called the "good guy". Its job is to carry fatty material from the rest of the body back to the liver, where it has to be dealt with, either by breaking it down, or discarding it. The "bad guy" is LDL. This type of cholesterol has the function of distributing fats from the liver to areas in the body where it is needed (under normal circumstances).
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 most important causes of cholesterol levels going haywire is to put it bluntly: eating too much, and eating the wrong food. In times gone by, our forebears had a more active lifestyle. If they ate a lot of fatty food, the body used that to provide energy, and no harmful substances were stored, no balances disturbed. In our time we eat way too much fatty food, which our bodies don't need, and has no other plan with than to store it in the form of fat. The balance of HDL and LDL in our bodies becomes disturbed, and this results in the build-up of fatty tissue in our arteries, often clogging them.
Another important contributing factor to cholesterol imbalance is smoking. Not many people know that cigarettes contain a highly toxic substance known as acrolein. This stuff is also present in pesticides and chemical weapons! It suppresses the normal functioning of LDL and HDL. One the one hand HDL no longer effectively carries excess fat from other areas of the body back to the liver to be destroyed or recycled, and LDL is oxidized in the whole process, changing it cellular structure and causing it to malfunction.
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. - 32002
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