Types Of Cholesterol

Cholesterol is a blood fat needed by the body in moderate amounts. However, high cholesterol levels can lead to atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease (CAD). Angina is chest pain caused by the restriction of blood flow to the heart (cardiac ischemia). To relieve angina, nitrates may be used.

Triglycerides, LDL, HDL, and total cholesterol are included in the cholesterol blood tests that most people will regularly have. Methods for increasing good cholesterol or lowering cholesterol levels may include cholesterol reducing drugs, such as statins, fibrates, niacin (nicotinic acid) and bile acid resins. However, these drugs do not reverse calcification. When the coronary arteries become blocked, a heart attack will occur. Cholesterol has many types. There are two big components and they are called HDL or high-density lipoprotein and LDL or low-density lipoprotein. Also, LDL is what we would consider as the bad cholesterol while the good cholesterol would be HDL.

That means that the bad cholesterol tends to accumulate in the arteries, tends to form plaques, tends to be the precursor to what eventually might end up being a heart attack.

The good cholesterol actually acts in part in reversing the cholesterol transport, takes cholesterol out of the plaque in the artery and may return it to the circulation, to the liver, to be excreted. So these are the two major categories, but within each one there are different particles, different cholesterols, different lipoproteins that carry the cholesterol, and they are differentially difficult players.

Some of the LDL cholesterol, i.e., the bad cholesterol, is worse than others. This also tends to be very dense and is the small particle size. You can try to think of the cholesterol particles that are larger and lighter to be like ping-pong balls and for those that are small and dense, they can be like marbles. The more dangerous ones are the small marble ones.

Possessing some components that are better than the others is HDL and is considered as good cholesterol. All in all, cholesterol is a complicated subject and we are still developing more therapies and the goal is not just at the total cholesterol, but in altering the good as well as the bad.

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