We all know that if we want to prevent heart disease and high blood pressure, we must regularly control our cholesterol levels. However, many people tend to brag about how they “watch their cholesterol” without even knowing what cholesterol is and what it does to our bodies. Let’s change that, shall we?
Cholesterol 101
Cholesterol takes the form of a waxy substance found in all your body cells and your body uses it to make cell membranes, hormones, produce vitamin D, etc.
Now, what most people don’t know is that your body makes almost all the necessary cholesterol it needs in order to function properly, and it does it mainly via your liver. To be more precise, your body creates about 75% of your blood cholesterol, while the remaining 25% comes from the food we eat.
And this is where it gets tricky.
Basically all health problems related to cholesterol occur when you consume more cholesterol than those 25% your body needs. This is when the cholesterol starts to build up on the walls of your arteries, narrowing them and forcing your heart to work harder in order to pump blood through your body, which later can lead to heart attack or stroke.
Another interesting fact is that women tend to have more problems with high cholesterol than men. Statistics show that a slightly greater percentage of women have higher total cholesterol in comparison with men of the same age.
