Brain-Heart Health and Cholesterol

Cholesterol is a type of fat that is vital to your health and found in the blood stream. Rather than just floating around in your blood, cholesterol can get into the walls of the blood vessels. Too much cholesterol in your blood stream and too much can lodge in the blood-vessel walls and remain there. Too much cholesterol in the walls of your blood vessels and the diameter of these vessels can narrow. This can clog the vessels causing any number of problems such as decreasing appropriate rate of blood flow to the brain and vital body organs and increasing the risk for blood clots. Blood clots in the circulatory system can cause heart attacks and venous thrombosis; strokes in the brain. The two main types of cholesterol are HDL and LDL. HDL (high density lipoprotein) is generally referred to a healthier cholesterol because it returns to the liver to be broken down. LDL (low density lipoprotein) is sometimes referred to as lousy cholesterol, as someone once put it, because it is more likely to hang out in the blood and lodge in the walls of the blood vessels. Where does cholesterol come from? More tomorrow.