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Good Cholesterol

September 11th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

Bad and Good Cholesterol Are Poles Apart

Every day you hear about the dangers of high cholesterol, about ways to lower your cholesterol and ways to avoid cholesterol in your diet. This kind of bad news would lead you to believe that cholesterol is a bad thing. Why does your body keep this awful stuff around anyway? But there’s bad and good cholesterol.

Well, your body needs cholesterol to build and maintain cell membranes. The membranes need it to produce hormones, vitamin D and bile acids. The bile acids actually help to digest fat. Most cholesterol is made by your body itself. There is, however, bad and good cholesterol. Your body only needs a little good cholesterol in order to be able to function well. When your cholesterol is high it means you have too much bad cholesterol.

High Density Lipoprotein

Cholesterol is manufactured in the liver. Foods from animals also contain cholesterol – probably because animals have livers too. Some vegetables can also contain cholesterol and saturated fat. Cholesterol is a fat-like substance that bonds to a protein before beginning its journey through the bloodstream. When cholesterol bonds to a protein the result is a lipoprotein.

The test you take to measure bad and good cholesterol actually measures lipoproteins. These lipoproteins are sorted by their density which is the measure of fat versus protein in the combination. High density means that there is more protein compared to fat. High density lipoproteins (HDL) are your good cholesterol. They do the necessary work assigned to cholesterol, don’t clog up your arteries and help flush excess fat from your body.

Low density lipoproteins (LDL), very low density lipoproteins (VLDL) and triglycerides (a type of fat carried by LDL and VLDL) make up the bad cholesterol that cause plaque buildup on artery walls and predict heart disease.

Why do levels of bad and good cholesterol vary from person to person?

Factors that affect cholesterol levels include being overweight, a diet with too much saturated fat and cholesterol, not enough exercise, heredity and certain medical conditions or medicines. Cholesterol tends to increase with age too.

If your cholesterol is too high your doctor will help you find out the likely causes. In general, you can always increase good cholesterol and decrease bad cholesterol by watching your diet, exercising regularly and losing weight. In other words you need to follow a healthy lifestyle. You’ll need your doctor’s help with the other factors. Don’t worry about having too little cholesterol. That’s not likely to happen. Concentrate on having enough good cholesterol, less bad cholesterol and the rest will take care of itself.

Cholesterol HDL Ratio

September 7th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

Why Improving Your Cholesterol HDL Ratio Is RecommendedThere are quite a few studies pointing to the fact that HDL cholesterol (which is the good cholesterol), when maintained high levels, protects us from heart disease. The same effect is possible from lowering the LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) but to a much lesser measure. So we need to keep an eye on our LDL to HDL cholesterol ratio.

A rather disturbing and recently found result from recent studies is that low HDL cholesterol levels would be indicative of a high risk of heart disease. In other words even if the total cholesterol and the LDL levels are normal, if the HDL cholesterol is low, then the risk of heart attack stays high. This indicates that somehow the HDL cholesterol is able to protect the heart from disease. So it’s the HDL Cholesterol ratio to LDL that is most important. Studies are now being carried out to find learn what the main ingredients are in HDL cholesterol that protect the heart from harm.

Properties Of HDL Cholesterol

Some preliminary studies have been conducted which show that HDL cholesterol contains a very complex molecule made of protein, lipids, and cholesterol. This molecule’s role seems to be to “clean” the walls of the arteries, thus removing the bad cholesterol from it and depositing it within the liver for cleansing. The HDL cholesterol here is performing the role as the ‘cleaner’.

Nowadays doctors whose patients have low HDL cholesterol are recommending that they try to increase it immediately and the treatment prescribed will be aimed at this goal. This means that even if the person has been found to have normal levels of cholesterol in the blood, but reduced good cholesterol, efforts are made to increase it and to get it to above the normal levels, thus changing the cholesterol’s HDL ratio.

Methods to Increase Good Cholesterol

Lose Weight – it is now well known that obesity is one of the leading causes of heart attack. Loosing weight not only results in increased HDL cholesterol and decreased LDL cholesterol (i.e. a change in the ratio between them) but also in good overall health.

Exercise Regularly – it has been proved time and again that aerobic exercise can increase the levels of the good cholesterol in the body.

Cut out Smoking and Reduce Consumption of Alcohol – smoking and drinking can aggravate heart disease and cause heart attacks.

Improve Your Diet - add plenty of fiber to your diet such as that found in oats, legumes, fruits, etc which should be consumed on a daily basis for increasing the good HDL cholesterol ratio.

Choelsterol HDL ratio to LDL is very important to your overall health and both should be looked at in conjunction with each other. Attending to one without the other won’t be as effective to your health as working to improve the levels of both.

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The information on this site is provided for educational and informational purposes only, and does not constitute professional medical advice, examination, diagnosis or treatment. If you have questions or concerns about your health you should seek the advice of an appropriately qualified and licensed physician or other health care provider. Do not start new or change existing treatment without such professisonal advice.