What is cholesterol?
cholesterol is a substance in the human body that is needed for cell construction and regulation. However, most people are familiar with this term because of the fear of "high cholesterol" and for you too many bad kinds of cholesterol are actively bad. Cholesterol can be used in the food we eat, but most of the trade in the body is made in the liver and other organs and circulates in the bloodstream where it does its work.
The story becomes confusing, because there are actually two types of cholesterol, of which only one is bad for you - Lipoproteins with low density (LDL), often referred to as "bad cholesterol". LDL is a substance that carries building materials around the body where it is needed. If you have too much LDL, it can align the walls of arteries in your bloodstream, create "plaque" and cause your arteries narrower and less efficient when moving blood around. Plak on the artery walls may, if not treated, lead the heart attack or stroke if it disrupts the blood flowe into the heart or brain.
On the other side of the equation are lipoproteins with high density (HDL) that have the opposite effect on cholesterol. They also circulate through the bloodstream, but round the excess cholesterol and take it back to the liver to process from your system. Thus, the amount of cholesterol in your system is not as meaningful as the relative amount of these two types of cholesterol.
monitoring the amount of cholesterol you consume - say, by limiting egg consumption - can have some little effect on your total cholesterol level, but because you produce around 75% of the total, it is often not enough. Fortunately, some foods actually increase your HDL level or "good cholesterol" and adding these foods to your diet can increase HDL. This in turn can help reduce your LDL or "bad cholesterol" when HDL gets to work and cleans it away.
oLiva, olive oil and most nuts and nuts - monounsaturated fats - all increase HDL and reduce LDL. Other vegetable oils - so -called polyunsaturated oils , such as corn and flare oils - also increase HDL and lower LDL, not as effectively as monounsaturated fats. saturated fats, which usually come from animal products such as meat, milk and cheese, increase both types of cholesterol.
real villains of the cholesterol story are trans-fats . These are often called partially hydrogenated , and they are laboratory creations aimed at maintaining the company “bath” Margarina. They are widely used in commercial baking and increase your LDL level (bad) and reduce the level of HDL (good). If you get used to reading food labels, you will find out how much of the products we consume trans-tuks. Removing them from your diet is a good step to ensure that you do not have to solve high cholesterol health problems later.