Foods High in Cholesterol – A Source of Heart Diseases
Most foods that are available today are foods high in cholesterol. Cholesterol has been a sensitive issue for decades. Understand the impact of total cholesterol and high cholesterol, in particular, is important to maintain our health and our quality of life.
The thing to understand is that when we talk about cholesterol, we are actually talking about three different things: the good cholesterol (HDL), bad cholesterol (LDL) and triglycerides. Triglycerides are cholesterol but are not really very closely related to normal cholesterol. Now, not all of these things are unhealthy or that cause disease. In fact, the body requires cholesterol and triglycerides also. The trick is to identify good and includes them in their daily diet, while avoiding unhealthy. Cholesterol and triglycerides of fish is good. Omega-3 fats found in fish numbers are recommended by doctors and nutritionists to patients suffering from diseases caused by cholesterol, and Omega-3 actually helps to reduce bad cholesterol level.
Foods high in cholesterol is not always the fault of cholesterol-related problems. The way food is cooked, the means used to cook food, even foods that are consumed along with staple foods are all factors contributing to high levels of bad cholesterol. Ignorance of the facts about cholesterol and how they affect our health often has led to ridiculous situations about certain foods. Read more
Why Cholesterol is a Problem
Far from being a totally unwanted substance in the body as many would probably believe, cholesterol is in fact an important constituent of certain bodily hormones such as estrogen and testosterone, and of cell membranes. In other words, cholesterol is actually something that is required and which performs vital functions within our bodies.
Why then, are we constantly told that we need to cut down our cholesterol levels? It is because our bodies actually manufacture all the cholesterol that they need. Cholesterol only becomes a problem for us when we consume it in excessive quantities. About three quarters of the cholesterol in our blood is manufactured by our bodies.
Your liver is extremely sensitive to your cholesterol requirement, so if you consume a somewhat greater quantity of it at some point, your body will manufacture a somewhat lesser quantity to keep the overall level in balance. A problem only arises when you consume so much that the ability of your body to properly balance the quantity is compromised.
The average individual requires something under about 14 grams of fat per day to enable them to acquire their requirement of essential fatty acids, but in the United States the average daily consumption is at least eight times that amount. That is, the average daily consumption is greater than 112 grams when only about 14 grams are required. This excess builds up in the arteries and sets in train a health time bomb in the bodies of the individuals concerned.
Epidemiological studies have demonstrated that cholesterol levels and blood pressure levels increase in proportion to the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol consumed. Read more
