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What is cholesterol and why is it needed in our body?
What can the average, ordinary person without a medical education say about cholesterol? It is worth asking anyone, as several standard calculations, stamps and considerations will immediately follow. Cholesterol can be of two types: “good” and “bad”, cholesterol is the cause of atherosclerosis, because when it accumulates, it settles on the walls of blood vessels and forms plaques. This is where the complex of knowledge of a simple layman ends.
Which of this knowledge is true, which is just speculation, and which has not been said?
What is cholesterol?
Few people actually know what cholesterol is. However, ignorance does not prevent the majority from considering it an extremely harmful and dangerous substance to health.
Cholesterol is a fatty alcohol. Both in domestic and foreign medical practice, a different name for the substance is also used – “cholesterol”. The role of cholesterol cannot be overestimated. This substance is found in the cell membranes of animals and is responsible for giving them strength.
Useful properties of cholesterol
Cholesterol is very important for our body:
Cholesterol is actively involved in the process of digestion, since without it the production of digestive salts and juices by the liver is impossible.
Another important function of cholesterol is participation in the synthesis of male and female sex hormones (testosterone, estrogen, progesterone). A change in the concentration of fatty alcohol in the blood (both up and down) can lead to reproductive failure.
Thanks to cholesterol, the adrenal glands can consistently produce cortisol, and vitamin D is synthesized in the dermal structures. Studies show that violations of the concentration of cholesterol in the blood lead to a weakened immune system and many other malfunctions in the body.
The vast majority of the substance is produced by the body on its own (about 75%) and only 20-25% comes from food. Therefore, according to studies, cholesterol levels can deviate in one direction or another depending on the diet.
Cholesterol “bad” and “good” – what’s the difference?
With a new round of cholesterol hysteria in the 80-90s, they started talking from all sides about the exceptional harmfulness of fatty alcohol. Here are television programs of dubious quality, and pseudoscientific research in newspapers and magazines, and the opinions of low-educated doctors. As a result, a distorted information flow fell upon a person, creating a fundamentally wrong picture. It is quite reasonable to believe that the lower the concentration of cholesterol in the blood, the better. Is this really so? As it turned out, no.
Cholesterol plays an essential role in the stable functioning of the human body as a whole and its individual systems. Fatty alcohol is traditionally divided into “bad” and “good”. This is a conditional classification, since in fact cholesterol is not “good”, it cannot be “bad”. It has a single composition and a single structure. It all depends on which transport protein it will join. That is, cholesterol is dangerous only in a certain bound, not free state.
“bad” cholesterol (or low-density cholesterol) is able to settle on the walls of blood vessels and form layers-plaques that close the lumen of the blood vessel. When combined with apoproteins, cholesterol forms LDL complexes. With an increase in such cholesterol in the blood, the danger really exists.
Graphically, the fat-protein complex of LDL can be represented as follows:
Cholesterol is “good” (high-density cholesterol or HDL) differs from bad cholesterol in both structure and function. It cleanses the walls of blood vessels from “bad” cholesterol and sends a harmful substance for processing to the liver.
[Video] Dr. Berg – What is bad cholesterol? LDL is not bad?! How to lower cholesterol: