confused about cholesterol

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picnic2day
picnic2day Posts: 63 Member
in Food and Nutrition
OK so I'm confused about good cholesterol versus bad cholesterol.

I'm looking through my food diary (printable version) and I have consumed no cholesterol, apart from a couple of eggs.

Does this mean I have a virtually cholesterol free diet. I'm sure it's not as simple as that.

Thought there was a lot of cholesterol in fat? But don't we need some cholesterol? some of which is good for us?

Confused ... will go and google some more.

Has anyone got an idiots guide to cholesterol levels?

Replies

  • lloydrt
    lloydrt Posts: 1,121 Member
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    Hi .......I jus happend to check out this site recently and it explains HDL versus LDL, and your total Cholesterol levels....great that you are asking now, as it can be helpful in the future . By knowing your numbers, you can avoid statins, stents and even open heart surgery

    I just got my blood work back and mine are great, although my Bad LDL level could be even better..........By knowing your numbers , it can prevent death, as heart disease is the number one killer of men and women in the US

    Here is the link, add me as a frieind, I did tons of research on the topic as I really want to make sure I don't have problems in the future with heart disease...

    Interesting fact ..........There are thousands of people, men and women in their 20s and 30s who have dangerously high Cholesterol Levels........scarry.........

    add me as a friend, and here is the link

    http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/resources/heart/heart-cholesterol-hbc-what-html.htm#numbers
  • emeretta
    emeretta Posts: 13 Member
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    I had high cholesterol as a kid. I went and saw a special doctor. I got sheets with smiley faces and sad faces showing me where I had to improve. I was seeing a nutritionist before i hit puberty. All while eating the exact same thing everyone else in my household ate! I went to a 'support group' where I was the smallest kid there. I had to do fitness testing. My doctor didn't seem to understand why I had this issue.

    Now that I'm older, I guess either I grew out of it or my GP isn't worried. I get blood work done but not as frequently as before (maybe once a year instead of every few months). I like eggs, red meat, and butter... Maybe because I was limited from them as a child.

    If I have 2 eggs in a day, MFP tells me I'm over. Huh. Okay then.
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,017 Member
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    Our body maintains around 35,000-40,000 mg's of cholesterol in our physiology on a daily basis. The body will either slow down the manufacturing of cholesterol or speed it up to maintain homeostasis and therefore consuming cholesterol has very little to do with your blood cholesterol and the cholesterol we eat can't actually be delivered directly to the blood stream and needs to be transported via lipoproteins which originates in the liver, so it's our liver that delivers cholesterol to our blood stream. The type of lipoproteins (hdl, idl ldl, vdldl) is mostly determined by our genetics and lifestyle which includes our diet. So basically a couple of hundred mg's from eggs is inconsequential, but the fat in eggs actually promotes less atherogenic lipoproteins, so eat your eggs and anything else that has cholesterol in it.
  • tennisgirl444
    tennisgirl444 Posts: 57 Member
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    Agreed with previous poster. In the old days, people thought "well high cholesterol in our body is bad, therefore you should eat less cholesterol to lower it." When in fact, the body produces almost all of the cholesterol in your body. If you eat no eggs or a handful of eggs, it would make a very small change in the % cholesterol in your body, as the majority is produced by your body. While I would probably take cholesterol intake into consideration along with all my other macronutrient and nutrient breakdown- I wouldn't want it to be MASSIVE- it isn't really that important. What seems to be most important for cholesterol levels is exercise and eating a healthy and anti-inflammatory diet (good fats like olive oil, fish, etc.).

    LDL is the "bad cholesterol", HDL is the "good cholesterol". Although it's not quite as easy as all that- they've actually discovered that the SIZE of the cholesterol is the most important predictor for negative health outcomes. (The smaller cholesterol can more easily lodge into the walls of your veins and arteries, creating a blockage, while larger cholesterol cheerily continues along with your blood).

    If you're concerned about your cholesterol, make sure you're eating a healthy anti-inflammatory diet, getting exercise, and maintaining a healthy weight. There is no need to worry about your dietary cholesterol intake unless it's insanely high.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    Are you a vegetarian? If so, you wouldn't have many sources, as it's in animals and animal products.

    Agree generally with the last two comments, also. Apparently only a minority of people have cholesterol that is actually affected by the levels they eat. That's why when you have high levels you will usually try lowering it in your diet to see if it helps. I'm not sure how much they correct that effect for eating healthy overall and losing weight even for those who seem to be affected.

    Anyway, my tests have always been good, so it's something I ignore currently.
  • sophysings
    sophysings Posts: 28 Member
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    My food diary also shows very little cholesterol - I think it is because (at least on UK food labels) it's not actually listed separately for the most part, which means that it doesn't get logged on MFP. Same with some of the vitamins. I wouldn't worry too much about it - you will be making enough to do all the things in the body cholesterol is vital for!
  • sophysings
    sophysings Posts: 28 Member
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    PS - I am a clinical laboratory scientist - can attempt to give you some idiot's guide numbers but it depends on where you live as the US expresses results of cholesterol (and most other lab tests) in different units to most of the rest of the world!
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,017 Member
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    Agreed with previous poster. In the old days, people thought "well high cholesterol in our body is bad, therefore you should eat less cholesterol to lower it." When in fact, the body produces almost all of the cholesterol in your body. If you eat no eggs or a handful of eggs, it would make a very small change in the % cholesterol in your body, as the majority is produced by your body. While I would probably take cholesterol intake into consideration along with all my other macronutrient and nutrient breakdown- I wouldn't want it to be MASSIVE- it isn't really that important. What seems to be most important for cholesterol levels is exercise and eating a healthy and anti-inflammatory diet (good fats like olive oil, fish, etc.).

    LDL is the "bad cholesterol", HDL is the "good cholesterol". Although it's not quite as easy as all that- they've actually discovered that the SIZE of the cholesterol is the most important predictor for negative health outcomes. (The smaller cholesterol can more easily lodge into the walls of your veins and arteries, creating a blockage, while larger cholesterol cheerily continues along with your blood).

    If you're concerned about your cholesterol, make sure you're eating a healthy anti-inflammatory diet, getting exercise, and maintaining a healthy weight. There is no need to worry about your dietary cholesterol intake unless it's insanely high.
    LDL being coined bad cholesterol is a misnomer, it's not bad per se, it's just the ones that do get oxidized and contribute to inflammation and heart disease and within that designation we finds different sizes of particles and the larger buoyant LDL are actually protective......so yes, it's therefore not so much about the level of LDL in our blood but the total number of particles that make up that reading........the fewer particles the less likelihood of oxidation and inflammation.
  • IRLACTCYD
    IRLACTCYD Posts: 10
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    Neanderthin has it right. I also believe that cholesterol is not as worrisome as most doctors make it out to be. The pharmaceutical companies that sell statins and other cholesterol drugs also want you to worry about your LDL and HDL numbers because it's great for their bottom lines. I am not a doctor, but these are my opinions based on my own research. If you're interested, here's a blog post by an "enlightened" doctor that offers some perspective: http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/lipid-hypothesis/5257/
  • tennisgirl444
    tennisgirl444 Posts: 57 Member
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    "LDL being coined bad cholesterol is a misnomer, it's not bad per se, it's just the ones that do get oxidized and contribute to inflammation and heart disease and within that designation we finds different sizes of particles and the larger buoyant LDL are actually protective......so yes, it's therefore not so much about the level of LDL in our blood but the total number of particles that make up that reading........the fewer particles the less likelihood of oxidation and inflammation"

    Exactly. If I remember correctly, I believe most of this belief that LDL is the "bad cholesterol" came out of the Framingham Heart Study (https://www.framinghamheartstudy.org/). Additional research has shown it's not quite as clear cut.

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