Cholesterol Control: Fact and Fiction

(For those of us who are not so familiar with what cholesterol is all about in relation to our health, especially for those who are older, loves to eat anything and don’t have enough time to exercise, it is advisable to take stock of what we ingest and how we could stay healthy and enjoy life.

Below is a reproduction of an article written by Steven Nissen, M.D. and Marc Gillinov, M.D., tagged Health Advice, which I find beneficial and simple to understand.

I hope this will give you a satisfying comprehension and appreciation of the importance of cholesterol in our lives. – Quierosaber)

Of all the risk factors for coronary heart disease (blockages in the heart’s arteries that can cause heart attacks), cholesterol receives the most attention. Hundreds of medical studies confirm the truth: you must understand cholesterol in order to manage your heart health.

The Internet offers millions of sites promising to reveal the “secrets” of cholesterol. Some are accurate, but many are not. Beware websites claiming that cholesterol has nothing to do with heart disease (wrong!) and those that tout “magic” remedies that promise to drive cholesterol levels to super-low levels that will melt away plaques and reverse heart disease (don’t count on it!). Accurate, evidence-based information is your key to successful cholesterol management.

What is cholesterol?

A waxy, yellowish white substance, cholesterol was first isolated by an eighteenth-century French chemist who was studying gallstones. This observation led scientists to link cholesterol to illness and disease, but subsequent research proved this theory incorrect. It turns out that every cell in your body contains cholesterol, and you can’t live without it!

Cholesterol is a key component of the cell membrane, the outer barrier between the cell and the rest of the body. Within the membrane, cholesterol molecules act like tollbooths, helping to regulate the passage of materials into and out of the cell. Cholesterol also serves as a building block for many important hormones, including estrogen and testosterone. Your body even needs cholesterol to manufacture vitamin D from sunlight.

Cholesterol tests: what do the numbers mean?

When you get a cholesterol test (lipid profile), we measure cholesterol and fat concentrations in your blood. The typical blood test provides four values.

Lipid Profile

Test	Normal Value
LDL cholesterol	Less than 130
HDL cholesterol	Greater than 40 in men and 45 in women
Total cholesterol	Less than 200
Triglycerides	Less than 150

Of these tests, LDL cholesterol is most important. A high LDL cholesterol is associated with the development of coronary heart disease, as well as stroke and peripheral arterial disease. In general, the lower the LDL cholesterol, the lower the risk of heart disease. While we state that a value less than 130 is “normal,” the person with multiple risk factors for coronary heart disease should aim for 100 or less and the person who already has heart disease should target 70 or less.

HDL cholesterol is the “good” cholesterol. The higher a person’s HDL, the lower the risk of coronary heart disease. In general, your total cholesterol is somewhat less important than your LDL or HDL values.

Elevated triglycerides have been associated with coronary heart disease, although scientists have not yet proven that lowering triglycerides is protective.

Denmark launches fat tax

An obese woman cooling it off

Denmark has just made history by pioneering the world’s first-ever “fat taxes” imposition in its determined effort to cut down the country’s waistlines and combat heart disease.

Fat taxes is no different from the sin taxes imposed by countries on products that many people consider “sinful” – meaning undesirable or harmful – such as liquor, cigarettes, and the original ones which is prostitution and gambling; intended to discourage use of these products and services and to let government profit off the people who continue to use them.

In the case of the fat taxes, Denmark’s government health authorities are aiming at encouraging people to buy less food containing saturated fats by making it expensive.

Saturated fat is defined as the type of fat found mostly in animal products and some plants.

Sources of saturated fat include foods such as beef, lamb, pork, lard, butter, cream, whole milk and high fat cheese. Plant sources include coconut oil, cocoa butter, palm oil and palm kernel oil.

From a medical point of view, saturated fat is said to cause elevated low-density lipoproteins (LDL) cholesterol levels. It is the fraction of the total LDL cholesterol or bad cholesterol that accumulates as fat deposits (plaques) on arterial walls and poses risk for cardiovascular diseases.

“There’s never been a tax on fats like this,” said Dr. Jorgen Dejgard Jensen at Copenhagen University, whose institute proposed the tax. “We will gain some very useful insights during the next year or two about whether it is changing consumption patterns, and also regarding the feasibility of implementing such a tax.”

The Danes can hardly be called pioneers. With less than one-in-10 classed as obese, there is not really that much reducing to do. According to Dr. Jensen, however, research has shown that saturated fat is the culprit for as many as 4 percent of premature deaths in the country.

But, just the same, if the new tax succeeds in cutting the amount of saturated fats Danes consume by one-tenth, as is hoped, other countries are certain to take notice, not least the United States, where more than one in three adults is clinically obese.

Note that Denmark has already sugar taxes on their pastries and ice creams in place. Will “salt taxes” on the Danes’ food soon to follow?

Makes me wonder at the end, what would this make of Filipinos who never tire eating McDo and Jollibee, who has the affinity for fast foods and junk foods, who goes crazy with the lechon, the adobo, the humba, and anything else fried or cooked in oil, who make their pastries laden with lard, who craves for anything sweet like the halo-halo and other local delicacies that are wrought in coconut oil, and who applies salt in their food with total abandon while having already dried fish for viand. Topping it all is the fondness for sodas and sweet artificial drinks in place of water. Am not talking yet about what the health future of the kids would be who are over indulging with their computer games and does not have the will to play and sweat outside, like we used to.

Tell tale signs are there now and it abounds. If government does nothing, we can become a country of pathetic sickly and obese people going into the full length of the 21^st century.

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