Does cholesterol really harm you?

jbobn85

Hi all.
Would somebody care to explain to me if it is true that cholesterol is bad and we should avoid all foods that contain cholesterol? I am asking this becase my coworker has just been diagnosed with high cholesterol and his doctor told him to avoid cholesterol rich foods.
Should I avoid cholesterol rich food as well as a pre caution measure? Did you had any problems with cholesterol in the past? How does it show?
Thanks for replying to me.

WhatNowHow

There's two kinds of cholesterol low-density cholesterol (LDL) and high-density cholesterol (HDL). LDL is 'bad cholesterol' found in full fat butter etc. HDL is 'good cholesterol' found in sunflower oil etc. Foods high in LDL cholesterol basically fattening foods should be eaten in moderation as cholesterol can build up and lead to athersclorosis (plaque) which when builds up over a number of years can lead to heart disease. You can get your cholesterol checked with a blood test. <5 is recommended.

jbobn85

I read online that cholesterol can clog your arteries and lead to stroke. I am asking all this because I love eating red meat and in addition I also happen to like eggs very much. Both foods are known to be cholesterol rich... I do not want to look like hypochonder, I just want to take precaution measure in order to avoid possible problems. I usually eat at least 3 eggs (with yolks ofcourse - yolk is the best part of egg ) every second or third day - some say this is too much. On top of that, I eat red meat at least 2 times per week (I make excellent steaks). Do you think this is too mcuh per day?

WhatNowHow

jbobn85 wrote: »

I read online that cholesterol can clog your arteries and lead to stroke. I am asking all this because I love eating red meat and in addition I also happen to like eggs very much. Both foods are known to be cholesterol rich... I do not want to look like hypochonder, I just want to take precaution measure in order to avoid possible problems. I usually eat at least 3 eggs (with yolks ofcourse - yolk is the best part of egg ) every second or third day - some say this is too much. On top of that, I eat red meat at least 2 times per week (I make excellent steaks). Do you think this is too mcuh per day?

I'm not sure if I can advise you on this as it may be seen as medical advice? Maybe have a look at the food pyramid and talk to your GP if you're concerned.

jbobn85

If I take a look at the numbers, here's what I found out:
1 sirlion roasted steak of 300g has: Cholesterol 174 mg. 3 baked eggs (about 180 grams) have: Cholesterol 822 mg. So if I eat 3 eggs every second day, that means 1 and a half egg every day (divided per day). So thats: 411 mg of cholesterol every day, plus half a steak every day (2 steaks per week, divided per day), that's an additional 87 mg of cholesterol per day. All together, that is almost 500 mg of diatery cholesterol every day. Recommended daily intake of dietary cholesterol is (that's what I've read): Cholesterol 200mg per day. So I'm eating more than 2 times more cholesterol than I should.
Now I know that I've gone a little to far now with all this calculating, but as I've said, I'm just curious of what you think before I visit my doctor. I'll probably go visit my personal doctor next week and talk to him about this. I'll ask him if it is possible to do measurement of cholesterol in blood, just to be sure...

RobFowl

Mod note, discussing cholesterol in general is fine but offering or asking for personal advice is not allowed.

jbobn85

No no, I wasn't asking for advice, but opinion. I am totally aware that users can't give advice as they are not doctors. Thanks everyone. I will take cholesterol test and see what's the deal.

jumpguy

Hi jbobn, cholesterol isn't all bad - it's a critical component of every diet because cholesterol is crucial in building the billions of cells that make up the human body. Cholesterol is a type of fat, fat and water don't mix. Because your blood is mostly water, cholesterol must be carried about your blood in microscopic structures called Low Density Lipoproteins (LDLs). Cholesterol from the food you eat is packed into these LDLs and transported around your body.

If your body has cholesterol it doesn't need, it is transported back to the liver to be dealt with (by excretion in the faeces or recycling into blood) by High Density Lipid (HDL).

Unfortunately (and intriguingly) our bodies can do a rather bad job of transporting cholesterol and some of it can become deposited in the walls of the tubes that carry blood around your body, causing them to become blocked which is a particular problem for organs like the heart which can withstand little change in the amount of oxygen it receives from the blood. Typically this becomes a problem in ones 50's and 60's and there are plenty of treatments, maybe the well known being balloon angioplasty - a balloon is inflated in the blocked pipe thus widening it again, and bypass where the blocked pipe is literally bypassed by putting in another pipe to allow the blood to go around the block.

Doctors usually look at proportions of HDL ("good" cholesterol) to LDL ("bad" cholesterol - although its role is crucial for life) to determine whether or not your blood cholesterol level is a risk factor to deal with for cardiovascular disease. There are loads of risk factors for cardiovascular disease that doctors typically look at, the most significant are family history of heart disease and age. Others are a sedentary lifestyle, obesity, high blood pressure and being male.

Your doctor should be able to measure your cholesterol and advise you of any changes (if any) you should make.

Chrisita

Currently there is a lot of controversy about exactly which fats are bad, good and which are downright harmful. The latest theories are that cholesterol levels are not as significant as once thought ,and inflammation is the biggie now.

El_Dangeroso

LDL and HDL are not cholesterol, but carrier proteins of cholesterol, which is just a certain type of fat.

According to the latest research, the proportion of total cholesterol to HDL is the most consistent predictor of heart disease at a population level. But the relationship is even more complicated than that at an individual level.

Saturated fat has been unfairly demonised in my opinion, and the evidence against it has been weak and rife with publication bias. Because unsaturated fat lowers cholesterol does not mean it prevents heart attacks, lots of unsavoury things like cancer and infection lower cholesterol.

High LDL was traditionally seen as a marker of poor heart health, but it is not bad per se, in fact if performs quite a vital function. High LDL in the context of heart disease is more likely an indication that there is a 'traffic jam' in the clearance of cholesterol from the blood, mainly via the LDL receptor in the liver. So when LDL is hanging around in the blood for a while, it is prone to oxidisation and will be preferentially taken up by scavenger receptors expressed by macrophages and become the dreaded foam cells which form the basis of atherosclerotic plaque.

So I think a more worthwhile strategy from public health point of view would be to encourage the things that we know prevent heart disease (no smoking, exercise, keeping waist circumference down) rather than myopically focusing on cholesterol. That to me would yield more dividends, but there's no good drug or food supplements for that yet so I'm not holding my breath.

tejula

jbobn85 wrote: »

If I take a look at the numbers, here's what I found out:
1 sirlion roasted steak of 300g has: Cholesterol 174 mg. 3 baked eggs (about 180 grams) have: Cholesterol 822 mg. So if I eat 3 eggs every second day, that means 1 and a half egg every day (divided per day). So thats: 411 mg of cholesterol every day, plus half a steak every day (2 steaks per week, divided per day), that's an additional 87 mg of cholesterol per day. All together, that is almost 500 mg of diatery cholesterol every day. Recommended daily intake of dietary cholesterol is (that's what I've read): Cholesterol 200mg per day. So I'm eating more than 2 times more cholesterol than I should.
Now I know that I've gone a little to far now with all this calculating, but as I've said, I'm just curious of what you think before I visit my doctor. I'll probably go visit my personal doctor next week and talk to him about this. I'll ask him if it is possible to do measurement of cholesterol in blood, just to be sure...

You know that maths is an exacts science, right? Exact science has very little to do with nature and natural processes. Like there is no direct switch between summer and winter. Do you get what I mean?

Don't think that way. Moderation is the key. Take cholesterol test and see if your numbers look ok. If numbers are ok, proceed with your diet and don't look back. It is advised to measure cholesterol levels every few years anyway (after you turn 35, that is).

wretcheddomain

jbobn85 wrote: »

Hi all.
Would somebody care to explain to me if it is true that cholesterol is bad and we should avoid all foods that contain cholesterol? I am asking this becase my coworker has just been diagnosed with high cholesterol and his doctor told him to avoid cholesterol rich foods.
Should I avoid cholesterol rich food as well as a pre caution measure? Did you had any problems with cholesterol in the past? How does it show?
Thanks for replying to me.

• Cholesterol is not bad. Cholesterol is needed to perform vital functions.
• No, we should not avoid all foods that contain cholesterol (see below).
• High Cholesterol doesn't really make sense as you need to reference it to the specifics of the carrier molecules HDL and LDL, but that's just semantics.
• I'd urge caution before taking a Total Cholesterol value as an indicator. The ratio is what's important. The concept of Total Cholesterol i.e. the magic number less than 5 is really a very weak approach to understanding severity. However, appreciating the ratio between HDL and LDL is a much more accurate approach, if somewhat disputed in the literature.

jbobn85 wrote: »

I read online that cholesterol can clog your arteries and lead to stroke. I am asking all this because I love eating red meat and in addition I also happen to like eggs very much. Both foods are known to be cholesterol rich... I do not want to look like hypochonder, I just want to take precaution measure in order to avoid possible problems. I usually eat at least 3 eggs (with yolks ofcourse - yolk is the best part of egg ) every second or third day - some say this is too much. On top of that, I eat red meat at least 2 times per week (I make excellent steaks). Do you think this is too mcuh per day?

• The relationship between red meat and cholesterol has recently been shown to be a weak one. It's true that high saturated fat foods happen to give you cholesterol and should be eaten in moderation, however, it's now believed that the associated weight gain (and hence cardiovascular problems) are the real problem with this association. This is due to the analysis of Mediterranean diets which have a high degree of saturated fats but a lower degree of heart disease compared to other regions of Europe.
• Eggs are perfectly safe. You can eat as many as you want and your "bad" cholesterol levels will not rise. It's a myth to say that they clog arteries or are a risk in precipitating this.

Hope that helps.

ThatDrGuy

jbobn85 wrote: »

If I take a look at the numbers, here's what I found out:
1 sirlion roasted steak of 300g has: Cholesterol 174 mg. 3 baked eggs (about 180 grams) have: Cholesterol 822 mg. So if I eat 3 eggs every second day, that means 1 and a half egg every day (divided per day). So thats: 411 mg of cholesterol every day, plus half a steak every day (2 steaks per week, divided per day), that's an additional 87 mg of cholesterol per day. All together, that is almost 500 mg of diatery cholesterol every day. Recommended daily intake of dietary cholesterol is (that's what I've read): Cholesterol 200mg per day. So I'm eating more than 2 times more cholesterol than I should.
Now I know that I've gone a little to far now with all this calculating, but as I've said, I'm just curious of what you think before I visit my doctor. I'll probably go visit my personal doctor next week and talk to him about this. I'll ask him if it is possible to do measurement of cholesterol in blood, just to be sure...

This is the classic dietician view point of cholesterol metabolism which treats hypercholesterolemia is a storage disorder caused by diet. Circulating cholesterol is synthesised in the liver, not absorbed directly into the blood steam. The net intake of cholesterol has only a small effect on circulating plasma cholesterol - your levels remain fairly constant even when fasting. As for whether it is bad for you or not, that is a very complex question. Artheriosclerotic plaques are not made out of cholesterol as many people mistakenly believe. They are formed ( among other things ) by immune cells stuffed with cholesterol. Usually when physicians see a horde of immune cells clustering around a pathological lesion we scream autoimmune and treat it with immune suppressants. In the strange case of artheriosclerosis we treat it with diets and cholesterol lowering medication. The medication certainly seems to work, but how it does is somewhat of mystery and may have nothing to do with their cholesterol effects ( via endothelial inhibition, plaque stablisation, immune modulation etc)