Just the mention of the word CHOLESTEROL evokes a profound sense of fear and doom. But the reality is, cholesterol is a veritable super hero in your body. In fact, it plays several crucial roles that you cannot live without... 1. You need cholesterol to manufacture all your steroid hormones and vitamin D. These essential hormones--estrogen, testosterone, DHEA, and more--have an impact on your weight, libido, digestion, bone health and mental status. 2. Cholesterol plays a key role in your digestion. Fats are digested mainly by your bile, and bile is formed from cholesterol. Undigested fat can cause a series of health problems. 3. Cholesterol is an important building block in your body. Its an important structural component of all your cells. And its a master repairman, jumping in to fix damage wherever it occurs. But that last benefit of cholesterol is actually where things can get a bit whacky. The biggest fear people have with regards to Cholesterol is heart disease. But high cholesterol does not directly cause heart problems. The problem actually lies in cholesterols role as repair man when theres an excess of inflammation. You see, when you have HIGH INFLAMMATION, you create damage in the cells lining the blood vessels and heart. And where theres damage, cholesterol tries its darndest to help. It comes in and repairs the damage. But when theres a bunch of inflammation, theres also usually a lot of free radicals. They oxidize and turn the soft, buttery texture of cholesterol into something closer to peanut brittle. And thats when you get the dreaded buildup of plaque that leads to hardened arteries and ultimately, heart disease! So high stress, combined with high dietary sugar and excess bodyfat, triggers chronic high inflammation. Cholesterol comes in and does its repairman job, but it gets oxidized by all the free radicals and leaves behind plaque deposits where it has patched up the damage caused by inflammation. Its the damage from inflammation that leads to heart disease. Without cholesterol repairing your blood vessels, youd have a stroke much sooner than you could ever have a heart attack. Dont blame the cholesterol... Its the chronic inflammation from the stress, sugar and excess bodyfat thats the problem. So go ahead. Eat your bacon and eggs. Just leave out the toast, and dont get stressed out on your commute to work...
Posted on: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 23:19:51 +0000