Hi Everyone,
Today's healthy tip revolves around cholesterol. Did you know everyone needs cholesterol? Without it, people have a higher risk of death, disease and dementia.
More and more studies show that cholesterol is not what causes heart disease. Sugar causes heart disease. The current test given by most doctor's offices measures your cholesterol number. Usually they say anything over 200 is bad and then as it gets higher they pressure you to go on medication to lower this number. To get more specific they measure the lipoproteins LDL and HDL. Typically it was thought that the higher concentration of cholesterol in the LDL caused heart disease. Now they are finding that it is actually the number of LDL particles not the cholesterol concentration in them. To make an analogy think of your blood as a highway, LDL as a car and cholesterol as a passenger. It is not the number of passengers in the car that is a problem, it is the number of cars on the road that can cause accidents. The increased number of particles can cause damage to the arterial liniing. With that being said, there are many thousands of Americans on statin drugs in this country when they really don't need to be. These drugs are not without serious side effects. I encourage all of you to make educated decisions before putting yourself on meds. You are your own advocate! Below is a great video to watch on cholesterol. Remember when it comes to health do your research and stay educated!
http://youtu.be/DS5wTXhRWMA
Today's healthy tip revolves around cholesterol. Did you know everyone needs cholesterol? Without it, people have a higher risk of death, disease and dementia.
More and more studies show that cholesterol is not what causes heart disease. Sugar causes heart disease. The current test given by most doctor's offices measures your cholesterol number. Usually they say anything over 200 is bad and then as it gets higher they pressure you to go on medication to lower this number. To get more specific they measure the lipoproteins LDL and HDL. Typically it was thought that the higher concentration of cholesterol in the LDL caused heart disease. Now they are finding that it is actually the number of LDL particles not the cholesterol concentration in them. To make an analogy think of your blood as a highway, LDL as a car and cholesterol as a passenger. It is not the number of passengers in the car that is a problem, it is the number of cars on the road that can cause accidents. The increased number of particles can cause damage to the arterial liniing. With that being said, there are many thousands of Americans on statin drugs in this country when they really don't need to be. These drugs are not without serious side effects. I encourage all of you to make educated decisions before putting yourself on meds. You are your own advocate! Below is a great video to watch on cholesterol. Remember when it comes to health do your research and stay educated!
http://youtu.be/DS5wTXhRWMA