Cholesterol

People always talk about cholesterol yet they don’t really understand what the cholesterol is. Here I want to discuss about cholesterol.

What is cholesterol?

Cholesterol is the fatty substance circulating in the blood which is produced by the liver. The substance is necessary for our body, but, it will be a problem having excessive cholesterol especially circulating in the heart and brain blood vessels.

Where does the cholesterol come from?

Everyone does have cholesterol circulating in their blood. The source is 80% produced by the body and 20% comes from food consumed. There are two kinds of cholesterol, HDL and LDL.

LDL is the bad one. If we have excessive LDL circulating inside our blood, it will be precipitated on the wall of blood vessel which interfere its flow.

HDL is the good cholesterol functioning as the filter of the excessive LDL. The high rate of HDL is good news as long as the LDL is below 150 mg/dl.

There is Triglyceride fat which is produced from the food metabolism. It is an excessive fat produced when we consume unnecessary energy from food.  

Why can the high blood cholesterol be dangerous?

The high blood cholesterol is one of the factors causing these health problems:

1. Stoppage/plaque of the heart blood vessel which can cause heart attack.

2. Stoppage/plaque of the brain blood vessel which can cause stroke.

How can we monitoring the level of cholesterol?

The only way to monitor our cholesterol level is by checking the blood sample taken after doing a night fasting or approximately 10-12 hours.

What is the normal blood cholesterol level?

Total cholesterol <200 mg/dl

HDL cholesterol 35-65 mg/dl

LDL cholesterol <150 mg/dl

Triglyceride < 200 mg/dl

Total cholesterol ratio: HDL cholesterol <5

What can cause the increasing of the blood cholesterol?

1. Genetic Factor

As we know that human body produces 80% of blood cholesterol. There are some people having more cholesterol production than the others. It may be caused by the genetic factor which he inherit his elder cholesterol production.

 2. Food Factor

Fat is important in metabolism. It is used as the source energy for the human body. Nonetheless, it will cause problems in our blood circulation if consuming excessively. Meats are the main source of fat and there are two kind of it:

a. saturated fat: meat, coconut oil

b. unsaturated fat: omega 3 , 6, and 9 fat acid

Well, I think that’s the simple explanation I can give right now. Later in the next article, I will give some tips how to maintain the cholesterol level of our body