Cholesterol. A fairly well-known concept. Cholesterol is known as one of the major causes of cardiovascular disease, but is it really? The answer is yes and no. There is good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. Bad cholesterol is the cause of cardiovascular disease, but what is the difference between good cholesterol and bad cholesterol? Below you can read briefly the difference between good and bad cholesterol.

What is Cholesterol?
Cholesterol is a fatty substance that occurs in our body in small globules. There is a thin layer of protein around the globules. This allows cholesterol to be transported through our blood. The body needs cholesterol to make body cells, hormones and bile.                                                                                                        How do I get cholesterol in my body?
We get a small part of the cholesterol that we have in our body through food. The rest is made in our liver.                                                                                                                       Good and bad cholesterol
There are several proteins that transport cholesterol in our body, but to make it easy I will only talk about HDL and LDL.   LDL is our bad cholesterol, but it also has a good function. LDL transports cholesterol to our body via the blood. This is necessary to repair damaged tissues. So this is a good function, but when there is too much LDL in our blood, it will stick to the inner wall of our blood vessels. As a result, the blood vessels will slowly silt up, which means that the blood cannot pass through as well. This process is called atherosclerosis and can lead to a heart attack.   HDL takes the cholesterol we have in our blood and transports it to the liver. This can be broken down again in the liver. The remainder leaves our body through bile and stool. Thus, the function of removing the cholesterol is to protect our blood vessels. When there is too much LDL in your blood or too little HDL, you have a too high cholesterol level and there is an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.                                                                                             Causes of high cholesterol

• Smoking
• Little movement
• A diet with a lot of saturated fat
• Hereditary factors  

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Kind regards,

Sascha Bargi BSc. Pt. & MSc. Ost. in training