Before you start chomping on those cheese fries or that greasy burger, you
might want to take a closer look at whether you're getting too much cholesterol.
Cholesterol, a waxy substance produced by the liver and found in certain foods,
is needed to make vitamin D and some hormones, build cell walls, and create bile
salts that help you digest fat. Actually, your body produces enough cholesterol
so that if you never touched another cheese fry, you'd be OK. But it's hard to
avoid cholesterol entirely because so many foods contain it.
Too much cholesterol in the body can lead to serious problems like heart
disease. Many factors can contribute to high cholesterol, but the good news is
there are things you can do to control them.
Taking a Look at Cholesterol
Lipids are fats that are
found throughout the body. Cholesterol, a type of lipid, is found in foods from
animal sources. This means that eggs, meats, and whole-fat dairy products
(including milk, cheese, and ice cream) are loaded with cholesterol - and
vegetables, fruits, and grains contain none. The liver produces about 1,000
milligrams of cholesterol a day, and you probably consume about 150 to 250
milligrams in the foods you eat.
Because cholesterol can't travel alone through the bloodstream, it has to
combine with certain proteins. These proteins act like trucks, picking up the
cholesterol and transporting it to different parts of the body. When this
happens, the cholesterol and protein form a lipoprotein together.
The two most important types of lipoproteins are high-density
lipoproteins (or HDL) and low-density lipoproteins (or LDL). You've
probably heard people call LDL cholesterol "bad cholesterol" and HDL cholesterol
"good cholesterol" because of their very different effects on the body. Most
cholesterol is LDL cholesterol, and this is the kind that's most likely to clog
the blood vessels, keeping blood from flowing
through the body the way it should.
About one third to one fourth of the total amount of cholesterol is HDL
cholesterol. HDL cholesterol carries cholesterol back to the liver, where it can
be processed and sent out of the body.
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