Cholesterol: The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly

  You've almost certainly heard of "good" cholesterol, which is HDL, and "bad" cholesterol, which is LDL. You may also have learned the mnemonic trick to figure out which is which: HDL should be High and LDL should be Low. But you may not know that the risk of heart disease, the leading cause of death worldwide, is three times higher for people with high levels of what is now being called "ugly" cholesterol. On your lipid profile, the "ugly" cholesterol is your – You guessed it! – triglycerides.

The "ugly" cholesterol finding is the result of Danish study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The researchers maintain that "ugly" cholesterol, also called "remnant cholesterol", is the main perpetrator of heart disease. A release from the University of Copenhagen quotes Professor Børge Nordestgaard as saying, "LDL cholesterol or 'the bad' cholesterol' is of course bad, but our new study reveals that the ugly cholesterol likewise is the direct cause of atherosclerosis resulting in ischemic heart disease and early death."

Nordestgaard notes that his team examined 73,000 people and found that an increase in ugly cholesterol triples the risk of ischemic heart disease, which is caused by lack of oxygen to the heart muscle due to narrowing or blocking of the coronary arteries. "I hope that this new knowledge will lead to better preventive treatment including lifestyle changes, as more than one in five individuals in affluent countries suffers from high ugly cholesterol," he said.  "We also hope that the pharmaceutical industry will develop new drugs targeted specifically at raised ugly cholesterol levels."

Cholesterol - the good and the bad

Cholesterol is carried in the blood stream in particles called lipoproteins.

These are named according to how big they are:

the very large particles are called Very Low Density Lipoproteins (VLDL)
the intermediate size ones are called Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) and these particles causeheart disease
the smallest particles are called High Density Lipoproteins (HDL) and these particles actually protect againstheart disease.

What to do if your cholesterol level is high

The most effective way to lower your cholesterol is to reduce the amount of animal fat in your diet by various means.

You could:

reduce cheese intake and/or substitute low fat varieties
choose reduced fat milks
use polyunsaturated or monounsaturated margarine or oils instead of butter
choose lean cuts of meat and remove all visible fat
eat skinless chicken, fish or beans
beware of pies, pasties, fish and chips and commercial cakes (hidden fat)
make cakes at home with polyunsaturated fat, cook chips with polyunsaturated or monounsaturated oil
lose weight ifoverweight.

If you make a number of changes to your diet you can expect your cholesterol to fall by 10 per cent.

About 15 per cent of people will see no change and another 15 per cent will see changes of 20-30 per cent.

Read more:Overlooked ugly cholesterol causes heart disease -Heart Disease newshttp://www.health.am/cardio/more/cholesterol-causes-heart-disease/#ixzz2InqtIKFo