Health Care & Medical

Your body needs cholesterol to function properly, but too much cholesterol can cause health problems. Here are the top five causes of high cholesterol.

Cholesterol is a lipid (fatty substance) that circulates in your blood. Cholesterol is needed by the body to maintain healthy cell walls and to produce vitamin D, certain hormones, and bile acids (which aid in fat digestion).

The two main types of cholesterol are LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol and HDL (high-density lipoprotein) cholesterol. LDL cholesterol is the bad type that can accumulate on the walls of your arteries and increase your risk for heart disease or stroke. HDL cholesterol is the good type that helps clear LDL cholesterol out of your blood and reduces your risk for heart disease or stroke. The term high cholesterol more specifically means a high level of LDL cholesterol and a low level of HDL cholesterol.

Here are the top 5 causes of high cholesterol:

1. Heredity

Some people are born with a condition called familial hypercholesterolemia, which is an inherited condition passed down through families that causes people to have high levels of LDL cholesterol. Other people, because of their genetics, are more likely to react to negative lifestyle factors that can raise LDL cholesterol.

2. Improper Diet

Most of the cholesterol found in your body is produced in your liver and only a small part of it comes from dietary cholesterol. As long as you don’t have a genetic predisposition for high cholesterol, dietary cholesterol will most likely have minimal effect on your blood cholesterol level. Saturated fat and trans fat are what you really need to avoid. Your body needs some saturated fat for growth, hormone production and other processes, but too much saturated fat can increase LDL cholesterol. Trans fat increases LDL cholesterol and decreases HDL cholesterol.

3. Being Overweight or Obese

Being overweight or obese can increase LDL cholesterol and decrease HDL cholesterol.

4. Being Physically Inactive

Being physically inactive can increase LDL cholesterol and decrease HDL cholesterol.

5. Age and Gender

Cholesterol levels tend to rise with age for both men and women. Prior to menopause, women generally have a lower level of cholesterol than men their age, but after menopause many women experience a substantial increase in LDL cholesterol along with a decrease in HDL cholesterol.

While you can’t control your genetics, age or gender, you are in control when it comes to making the lifestyle changes necessary to lower high cholesterol. Eating a healthy diet, losing weight, and exercising regularly will not only lower high cholesterol, it will also reduce the risk for numerous other health problems.

How Metabolism happens

Vitamins and minerals are essential to body metabolism-the chemical reactions that involve increase or breaking down substances within the body. Metabolism is that the method by that the body’s cells modify nutrient molecules and use them to form energy, or as building blocks for brand spanking new cells and tissues. Metabolism, for any living organism, is life itself. Metabolism comes from a Greek word which means “change,” which is what cells do with nutrients. they modify the chemical substances from foods into molecules that are required to try to to the body’s work. we have a tendency to don’t eat nutrients; we have a tendency to eat foods, that are too chemically complicated for cells to use. The foods we have a tendency to eat should be diminished into less complicated chemical substances-the nutrients-so that they’re offered to the cells. Foods undergo 3 steps before nutrients are offered to the body’s cells. These processes are digestion, absorption, and metabolism.

Digestion begins within the mouth, where teeth and therefore the enzymes in saliva begin breaking down foods. Once within the abdomen, food is exposed to gastric juices, and therefore the chemical breakdown turns it into a thick liquid referred to as chyme. Chyme moves to the tiny intestine. Here, with the assistance of a lot of chemicals from the pancreas and gallbladder, it’s diminished into nutrient parts. (Unusable food substances move to the massive intestine and are excreted by the body.) The nutrients are currently absorbed into the bloodstream through the intestinal walls. Vitamins and minerals will be carried to each cell within the body, via the bloodstream. Amino acids from proteins, glucose from carbohydrates, and fatty acids from fats are also currently usable and prepared to be metabolized by the cells. The nutrients experience the cell membranes and into the cells themselves, where a lot of chemical reactions happen.

Metabolism

Once within the cell, a molecule of glucose is diminished to unharness its energy. When nutrient molecules are diminished and energy is released, the method is named catabolism. however cells might use energy from nutrients to create a lot of complicated molecules, too. for instance, a cell membrane could also be broken and wish repair. This method is thought as anabolism. during this case, individuals use the “bodies” of potatoes, broccoli, and fish, for example, to take care of and build up their own bodies. The nutrient material in food is reworked to construct the building blocks of the human body. Scientists say that the nutrients we have a tendency to ingest will be thought of because the metabolic pool employed by the cells for construction. simply as carpenters, bricklayers, and roofers use nails, tiles, bricks, mortar, glue, and wood to create a house, cells use the substances from nutrients to construct body components.

The strength of the house depends on the standard of the building materials; the health of the body depends on the standard of the substances within the metabolic pool. To repair a cell membrane, new protein molecules are required. These are designed through anabolism, using the amino acids within the metabolic pool. The new protein molecules might encompass a whole bunch or maybe thousands of amino acids. completely different nutrient molecules could also be metabolized in numerous ways that or for various functions, however all cells’ metabolic processes occur during a similar approach. various nutrient molecules are absorbed and used with each meal. several find yourself as a part of the body, though some are excreted from the body as unneeded or unusable. several of those nutrients, particularly vitamins, minerals, and proteins, are used to construct or build up enzymes. Enzymes are the chemicals that management the cellular processes of anabolism and catabolism. They conjointly direct how briskly a cell’s chemical reactions happen. Some vitamins shield the cells from damaging themselves as they metabolize nutrients. Nutrients build new bone, muscle, and blood cells within the body. They fuel the cells that create thinking, moving, and respiration attainable. They keep bodies alive by regularly building new cells as recent ones die. 2 million red blood cells die and 2 million are replaced by the blood-manufacturing cells in bone marrow each second. which means an intense, ongoing would like for all the correct nutrients.