What is cholesterol?
Cholesterol is a white, waxy substance that is found in some of the foods we eat. Cholesterol is also manufactured by all the cells in our body, but most notably by the liver cells. Some cholesterol is essential to good health.
Not only is cholesterol an important component of cell walls, it is essential for the production of some. For most people between 70 and 75 percent of the cholesterol in our blood is made by their liver; the other 25 to 30 percent comes from the food we eat. Your foods cholesterol, therefore, is something that you can change by your own efforts.
Your body needs fat and cholesterol in order to maintain good health. During infancy and childhood, fat is essential for normal brain development; throughout life, it is essential to provide energy and support growth. Cholesterol is used to build the walls of cells throughout the body and to manufacture essential substances such as hormones and vitamin D. So it is important to have some fat and cholesterol available in your body at all times.
If cholesterol is needed for healthy bodily function, in what way is cholesterol bad for you? It’s simple.The answer to these questions is simple. A certain amount of cholesterol is important for the body. But when your blood cholesterol level exceeds 200mg/dL (milligrams per deciliter), you can be at risk of developing heart disease. It’s the reason so many of us are looking for a solution to high cholesterol.
Elevated total blood cholesterol is very much a modifiable heart disease risk factor. In so many cases heart attacks, bypass surgeries, angioplasties, and sudden cardiac deaths occur in people with total cholesterol levels above 200mg/dL. Cholesterol medication is used to help control those levels.
But a better way to estimate risk of heart disease is to know your ratio of total cholesterol to good cholesterol. It’s not just the total cholesterol level that tells you what your risk is: you actually need to know what your ratio is.
Always seek your doctor’s advice for all health related issues. The information in this post is for information purposes only and is not intended to diagnose any ailment or suggest any treatment.
