Good and Bad Cholesterol

Heart disease has claimed more than 17 million lives every year worldwide. Every time this kind of statistics shows up, many people would contribute its cause to cholesterol. Whenever people hear that word, what come to mind are fat, thick gobs of lard and the likes. It seems to be that cholesterol has a pretty bad reputation but this is probably just from bad publicity from the media because cholesterol is also very important to survival.

There are two types of cholesterol streaming inside our veins: low-density lipoprotein and high-density lipoprotein. Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) is produced by the liver and carries cholesterol through out the body for biochemical processes like hormone production. On the other hand, HDL or high-density lipoprotein scour the body for excess cholesterol and takes it to the liver to be eliminated from the body. You can determine how much HDL and LDL you have by a simple blood exam and then you can compare it to a cholesterol levels chart to determine if you have the right amount circulating in your body.

Normal cholesterol levels should be less than 200mg/dl. The higher you go from normal, the greater the risk for heart disease and stroke. As for LDL cholesterol levels chart, having an LDL reading of less than 130mg/dl is considered normal. In contrast, if you registered an HDL level of more than 60mg/dl in your standard HDL cholesterol levels chart then you have a lot of those micro machines working to get rid of excess cholesterol in your body. These charts are a valuable tool in determining your health status and can be used as a guide for treatment if necessary and also preventive measures.

As mentioned before, LDL is bad cholesterol if you have high levels of the stuff. So obviously, lowering it would be a great first step. Diet primarily plays a role in this. Foods rich of the stuff are meat most especially in beef and pork; processed foods like ice cream and canned goods have nasty quantities of LDL and other chemicals too. Butter is also quite full of LDL so using it sparingly is highly recommended. In short, LDL can be found in food items that has fat in it.

What we need is a good amount of good cholesterol to combat excess LDL. So consuming foods rich in Niacin like eggs, omega-3-fatty acids and also monounsaturated fats help increase the levels of HDL circulating in the body.

Together with exercise, avoiding smoking and limiting alcohol consumption, you can have the prefect balance of HDL and LDL in your bloodstream and you can have a healthy life without you worrying about your ticker suddenly losing its clicks and ticks.

If you want to get more information about LDL cholesterol levels chart and HDL cholesterol levels chart, just visit us.