Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Dietary versus Blood Serum Cholesterol

Dietary cholesterol has no bearing on blood serum cholesterol. Cholesterol is a very large molecule. It has to be broken down into tiny fragments to be absorbed through your gut wall, at which point these building blocks are normally used for something else. All the cholesterol in your blood/body is produced by your liver.

And that's ignoring the fact that when people talk about 'good cholesterol' and 'bad cholesterol' they're not actually talking about cholesterol but rather the cholesterol transporters.

LDL (low density lipoprotein/'bad cholesterol') transports the actual cholesterol molecules in the blood from the liver to wherever needs it. Cholesterol is vital for regulating cell membrane fluidity - you'd die without it.

HDL (high density lipoprotein/'good cholesterol') transports it back to the liver when its finished.

An overall poor diet (many different and complex factors - none of which are how much cholesterol you consume in your diet) causes the overproduction of LDL and underproduction of HDL, so more is going out than is coming in, leaving fatty deposits in your arteries which causes high blood pressure and all the knock on effects.

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