Cholesterol is a white, waxy substance that is present in some of the foods we eat. It is also manufactured by all the cells of our body, but most notably by the liver cells. A certain amount of cholesterol is critical to good health.
It’s not only an important component of cell walls, it is essential for the body’s production of some. For most of use between 70 and 75 percent of the cholesterol in their blood is made by their liver; the rest, about 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 key essential substances like hormones and vitamin D. So it is important to have some fat and cholesterol in your body at all times.
If cholesterol is needed for healthy bodily function, how 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. However when blood cholesterol levels exceed 200mg/dL (milligrams per deciliter), you can be at risk for developing heart disease. It’s the reason so many of us are looking for a solution to high cholesterol.
Raised 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.
Now here’s a question: is it ok to eat eggs these days? Well, that shows up one of the problems, doesn’t it? Advice always seems to be changing. Right now the general advice seems to be that you don’t have to worry too much about eating eggs, whereas they used to be considered a very bad influence on your cholesterol. So who do you believe? As with all these things, it pays to look into the reasons why the advice has changed and then to apply some of your own common sense.
After all, we all love a nice egg, especially if it’s been boiled correctly using an egg timer. If you don’t, it’s a bit of guesswork to get the right consistency, but more importantly you don’t always know when the egg’s been cooked. It’s important to make sure you cook your eggs correctly, since – cholesterol aside – they can contain salmonella.
A better way to estimate your risk of heart disease is to actually know your ratio of total cholesterol to good cholesterol. It’s not just the total cholestrol level that tells you what your risk is: you really 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. You can find more information at www.highcholesterolfoods.net but should always seek clarification of any information found on the web from your own doctor, before doing anything.