The Health Benefits of Cholesterol

Cholesterol is scary. If it weren't there wouldn't be advertisements for cereals claiming to lower your Cholesterol. Still others resort to doctor's help in controlling theirs. One myth of the infamous Cholesterol is that you shouldn't eat foods containing Cholesterol if you want to keep it next to nil or low. The body being the manufacturing plant that it is will continue to manufacture Cholesterol whether you eat the fatty stuff or not. You might find that your body actually produces more Cholesterol when it isn't getting any through foods. If you're dieting lack of Cholesterol could actually make you fatter.

It's not only food that raises Cholesterol. Stress can and constant worrying over something you probably can't control anyway. Smoking, cigarettes, cigars, etc., kicks it high and second hand exposure does the same to non-smokers.

The body makes Cholesterol for many reasons. It's not just a bad guy trying to kill you. It's really the friendly guy next door. Some of the things it does are pretty amazing. It helps in the making of Vitamin D from sun exposure. Bile salts wouldn't get made without this helpful handyman and sex glands would fall short in performance: How bland would that be?

Cholesterol is so important in keeping good health that all the cells in the body contain it. The brain which houses ten percent of the stuff, all the nerves and the spinal cord are richly supplied with Cholesterol. The hype of cholesterol causing heart attacks isn't something to be ignored. Any fatty deposit that accumulates where it shouldn't is surely a part of the problem, but so are other major blows by other malfunctioning fluids or organs of the body. Emotional well being, hereditary contributors, staying inactive, poor behavior choices as in alcoholism, and sexually transmitted diseases can all be underlying conditions of heart deterioration.

Since cholesterol is yellow colored and has a waxy feel it has been connected with the yellow chunk of fat used at a lot of health fairs, hospital booths, etc., or the "Here's what ten pounds of fat looks like," which has appeared on the Oprah show. The fat model used has been picked up by onlookers to get an idea of how heavy ten pounds of fat really is and touched to see what the waxy block feels like. A lot of people can be led astray by visually seeing cholesterol in this type of makeshift model and think Cholesterol is bad because it is nothing more than fat. Some people might decide to remove all fat from their diet.

No fat diets have been linked to gallstones, higher blood fat, dandruff, itchy dry skin, skin sores, and greater arterial Cholesterol deposits. Don't forget that fat is needed to break down some very important Vitamins in the body.

The realization that fat is valuable has created diet trends high in fat and low in carbohydrates. While limited to 60gm of carbohydrates a day in order to obtain weight loss Cholesterol has proven to be a worthy adversary.