Having a lower cholesterol is very important to our overall health, no matter how old we are or aren’t. This is especially true if we want to avoid having a heart attack or stroke. In order to understand what this means and how to achieve it, we all need to understand a few of the key concepts and terms first. Among the things that we need to know are cholesterol, HDL, LDL, lipoproteins, serum cholesterol, dietary cholesterol, saturated fats, atherosclerosis, and coronary artery disease.
Cholesterol is basically just a fat-like substance that is found all through the body. Basically it gets there in one of two ways, either from the body itself or in the foods we eat and put into it. It is a very common, and very important worker bee in the body’s honey comb. Too much of it, however, is not healthy for the body. Too much of it can clog our arteries, block our hearts, and actually threaten to end our lives. More often than not we need to lower cholesterol in our bodies.
There are two kinds of cholesterol that we have, which may be confusing at first. High density lipoprotein is one of them, and it is commonly known as HDL, sometimes it is also called the good cholesterol because it can protect the heart. Low density lipoproteins, which are commonly known as LDL, and are sometimes called the bad cholesterol because it can clog arteries and kill us, is the other. We have both kinds of cholesterol in our bodies and we them need both. The balance between them is critical to our body. It is what helps determine whether a heart is healthy or in dyer need of correction.
The link between cholesterol and heart disease has been established in numerous studies. In Specific, the higher the cholesterol, the greater the risk is of us getting heart disease. It’s really that simple. High cholesterol is common for most people. However the good news is that we can do something about it. We all want lower cholesterol. The hard thing though is that most of us have a hard time to control this.
