photo credit: Smabs Sputzer
It is a known fact that the heart disease is one of the major killer diseases today. That is why one must always be careful about his cholesterol intake. In simple terms, one just has to be careful what he eats.
What Is Cholesterol?
Despite its bad connotation, cholesterol per se is not entirely bad. In fact, human and animal tissues naturally have cholesterol. The liver produces enough cholesterol in the body so it can produce vitamin D, a healthy cell membrane structure and other hormones.
On the other hand, food especially from animal also has cholesterol. The amount contained in each varies though. To eat zero cholesterol food, you can opt to eat plant derived instead.
LDL versus HDL Cholesterol
LDL cholesterol refers to low density lipoprotein cholesterol while HDL cholesterol stands for high density lipoprotein cholesterol. Between the two, LDL cholesterol is considered the bad cholesterol and HDL cholesterol is the good cholesterol.
Lipoproteins are produced in the liver and circulated through the blood. It generally contains proteins, triglycerides and cholesterol. But what really distinguishes LDL from HDL cholesterol is the way they function.
LDL cholesterol generally functions to circulate cholesterol through the blood and to drop it off wherever cell building is taking place. The bad thing about it though is that unused cholesterol is stuck on the walls of the arteries. Too much of this would result to clogging of the arteries and problems in the heart.
HDL cholesterol, on the other hand, functions to clean up the arteries from residue cholesterol. Then it brings them to the liver so they can be reprocessed or excreted.
Fats and Cholesterol
Not all fatty foods are bad. You just need to be choosy. If you ever wonder why olive oil and canola oil are preferred, that’s because such oils contain monounsaturated fats. It’s a great alternative to saturated fats. It lowers LDL cholesterol without changing the HDL cholesterol levels. This would help you avoid any clogging in the arteries and it would help you avoid heart diseases as well.
The extreme opposite of this is saturated fats. It’s quite saturated that it even turns solid at room temperature. That is why you should avoid chicken skin, fats in meat, lards, butter, cheese, milk fat and other dairy products. The more you consume these products the higher is your risk to coronary heart disease.
Hydrogenated fats, on the other hand, are liquid but they also turn sold after processing. They also add to high cholesterol levels.
Corn, cottonseed, soy bean and sunflower are less evil. They are all polyunsaturated fats. They lower LDL cholesterol. But the only problem is polyunsaturated fats also lower HDL cholesterol. Since it functions to clean up the arteries, you don’t need to lower it in any manner.
But then again, you should not consume excess fats either. Always keep everything in moderation and choose the healthy fats when you need to.