Answers About High Cholesterol Levels

High cholesterol levels have a lot to do with the condition of your heart. Keeping your cholesterol levels low is important to having a healthy heart, but it's also important to know the difference between good cholesterol and the type that is bad for your body. In the fight to lower high cholesterol levels, exercise and a good diet both play a role.

What is cholesterol?

Half of the battle of preventing high cholesterol is knowing what cholesterol is and what you can do to prevent your cholesterol levels from getting out of control.

Cholesterol is a fatty substance, also called a lipid, that is an important part of the cell membrane (outer lining) in animals. It is also circulating through the blood of humans. The cholesterol that is in our blood typically comes from two different sources, either in the food we eat or produced in the liver.

Many of the foods we eat contain high cholesterol, especially meats such as liver and organs. Dairy products, fish, and poultry also contain cholesterol, but foods that come from plants contain none at all. After eating, our intestines absorb cholesterol and it forms a protein "coat".

What is the difference between good and bad cholesterol?

When we talk about having high cholesterol, we refer to having high levels of "bad cholesterol" or LDL cholesterol. LDL levels are generally associated with heart problems and heart disease. The particular cholesterol type forms itself as hardened proteins on cell and artery walls which causes the formation of a thick substance that can eventually clog the arteries.

HDL cholesterol is known as good cholesterol. HDL cholesterol prevents heart problems by taking the bad cholesterol away from the artery walls and sending it to the liver for proper disposal. High levels of bad cholesterol and low levels of good would create an internal problem because the arteries become clogged and none of the LDL goes to the liver for disposal.

How do we determine high cholesterol?

Determining high cholesterol requires figuring out the levels LDL and HDL, which are types of cholesterol, the former being bad and the latter being a type of good. The level of the intermediate density cholesterol (or IDL) is also determined. If the levels of good are considerably lower than the bad cholesterol levels, a diagnosis of high cholesterol levels is the usual result.

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