What Cholesterol Do To Your Health

It is commonly mistaken by many that cholesterol is bad for your health, but in fact, cholesterol is actually an essential element for our body; it is just having too much of it causes us problems.

Major sources of cholesterol

Some of the cholesterol in our bodies is produced naturally, and some of it is derived from foods we eat. It is a lipid, or fat that is produced by liver. Every cell in the body has a layer of cholesterol on the outside. Most of the cholesterol in the body comes from the liver; about seventy-five percent. The other twenty five percent comes meat that we eat. There are two types of cholesterol- good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. HDL is the "good" cholesterol and LDL is the "bad" cholesterol.


What is the function of cholesterol?

Cholesterol has several functions.

It is used to produce bile acid for emulsifying fat.

It is essential in the process of cell permeability

It is a building block for bodily tissues as it helps to repair old and injured cells

It absorbs fat soluble vitamins, such as A, D, E, and K.

HDL helps to bring LDL from our arteries back to our liver. LDL then will be broken down and will be removed from our body. Therefore, we always aim to increase the level of HDL in our blood as it helps reduce the bad cholesterol. However, if the amount of LDL is becoming too much for the liver to handle then the excessive LDL begins to accumulate and plaque starts to buildup in the artery walls.

What should we do?

Unfortunately, a person having high levels of cholesterol has no symptom or sign. Related symptoms such as chest pain or shortness of breath, are usually caused by other diseases developed because of high blood cholesterol, not high blood cholesterol itself that caused the symptoms. In addition, high blood cholesterol does not necessary have correlation to the person's lifestyle or eating habit as the condition can be genetic.

Although high cholesterol can be genetic or causes of other diseases such as diabetes or liver failure, but maintaining a healthy diet, exercise regularly and avoid excessive consumption of alcohol are ways to keep our cholesterol level in optimal levels.

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