High Cholesterol
When people hear the word cholesterol, they think negative thoughts. Actually, cholesterol is not evil. If you didn’t have cholesterol in every cell of your body, you would cease to exist. This is how important this naturally occurring chemical is.
If Cholesterol Does Good Things, Why Do I Need to Watch My Cholesterol Level?
Even the so-called ‘bad cholesterol’, or LDL, is very necessary to human health. The negative health connotations attached to cholesterol only occur when LDL and HDL exist in an unhealthy ratio.
This almost always means an excess of LDL, short for low-density lipoprotein. (Technically it is not even cholesterol, but a cholesterol transport). Excess LDL occurs simply as a result of modern lifestyles; an excess of particular foods and food types, and (to a lesser extent) a lack of exercise, or energy expenditure. Continue reading
If you have high cholesterol have you asked yourself the question, “is a high sugar diet linked to cholesterol”? Or have you been told or led to believe it’s just the fatty foods in your diet?
Unfortunately, too many us of are under the assumption it’s the fat or cholesterol content we consume, however, that’s not necessarily true. Our body makes cholesterol too and it makes much of it from sugary foods and/or simple carbohydrates.
How Does Our Body Turn Sugars into Cholesterol?
Our body processes foods in various ways, but as we are focusing on sugar this is what happens:
- We eat a sugary treat. This is a simple carbohydrate.
- Our body releases the hormone insulin.
- Insulin stores sugar for our energy reserves and also stores excess blood sugars as fat.
- The raised insulin levels, which has triggered the body to go into storage mode, now creates LDL (the bad, when in excess amounts) cholesterol.
- The body also has to remove the excess sugars in the blood. To do this the body begins to locate and store the excess as triglycerides. This is the one you don’t want to raise, but you will if you eat too many sugars or simple carbohydrates!
