Lower Cholesterol Keeps Your Heart Healthy

There is much talk about a lower cholesterol level for keeping your heart healthy. Many people get scared when their doctor tells them that their cholesterol is high, and they take drastic steps to cutback on their original diet. While it is good to adjust your diet, it is also important to know what foods affect your cholesterol. Just by randomly cutting out certain foods does not make you any wiser. First, you need to know what the doctor means by cholesterol, and all the technical terms that go with it.

Just like any other medical term, a lower cholesterol is buried in terms like HDL and LDL, lipoproteins and saturated fats, serum cholesterol and dietary cholesterol. Also, you will hear doctor's using the terms atherosclerosis, and coronary artery disease, referring to an abnormal heart condition. Finally, medical people talk about cholesterol in generic terms.

Everyone has cholesterol whether it is naturally made by your body or comes from certain foods you regularly eat. In fact, most cholesterol comes from your body because the body needs it to build cell membranes. But consistently adding your dietary needs can produce more than you need of this fatty substance. If this oversupply goes untreated, you can have serious health problems. So once your doctor knows about it, he will take steps to lower cholesterol in your body. Untreated high cholesterol can lead to clogged arteries, which means the supply of blood to the heart will be restricted, leading to heart disease or sudden death.

Now this becomes more confusing when you consider that your body has two types of cholesterol – HDL and LDL. But it doesn't have to be if you understand what the terms mean. Lipoporteins are made by the liver and carry cholesterol and other substances to various organs, tissues, and muscles. HDL is the shortened name for high density lipoproteins, and low density lipoproteins carry the acronym LDL. When your doctor diagnoses that your cholesterol is high and you need lower cholesterol in your body, he is usually referring to the LDL. Medical experts refer to LDL as the bad lipoprotein because it can clog those arteries leading to the heart, and too much LDL can also be fatal. On the other hand, the HDL is commonly known as the good lipoprotein that helps protect your heart from damage. But you do need both lipoproteins in a natural balance because both function to keep your body healthy.

So if your body keeps low levels of LDL, it could signal that you have a potential risk of heart disease if you do not take steps to lower cholesterol in your body. This could mean watching your diet and avoiding foods that are rich in LDL. Your doctor might also give you medication if you don't have the discipline or willingness to restore the natural cholesterol balance in your body.

Other the other hand, you know you have a strong heart if your blood test shows high levels of HDL. The link between heart disease and cholesterol, especially LDL, is a known fact. But you don't have to become a statistic of heart disease if you make an effort to have lower cholesterol in your body.

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