This short article will cover what is cholesterol. Everybody seems to know that you must get your cholesterol low but is that all you need to know. This article will discuss what is good cholesterol, bad cholesterol and the ugly results should you not keep your cholesterol reading within a safe limit.

Cholesterol serves a purpose in the body. It makes the cell walls more robust, it helps to convert sunlight to vitamin D on the skin. It also helps to produce certain hormones that are vital for regulating the body's metabolism.

It is often described as a white, waxy substance which you could compare to ear wax. For most people, between 70 and 75 percent of the cholesterol in their blood is manufactured by their liver. The rest is taken from the food that they eat.

So cholesterol is vital to the body's overall health but too much is detrimental to it. The current thoughts on an ideal cholesterol level are that anything over 200mg per deciliter of blood is not good for the body.

What is Bad Cholesterol

The bloodstream transports energy, vitamins and nutrients to the rest of the body. It does the same thing for cholesterol. However cholesterol is not soluble in blood so it needs to attach to something that can be transported by the blood.

This transport is known as a lipoprotein. When cholesterol is transported out from the liver to the rest of the body, it travels on low density lipoproteins (aka LDL cholesterol or bad cholesterol). The aim of lowering cholesterol is to eat less cholesterol creating foodstuffs or foods that reduce the amount of LDL cholesterol in the body.

What is Good Cholesterol.

Good cholesterol is the opposite. In this respect, it is also a lipoprotein but it is known as a high density lipoprotein (aka HDL cholesterol or good cholesterol). It acts as a transport for cholesterol taking it from the rest of the body back to the liver where it is excreted. More good cholesterol can increase the amount of cholesterol excreted from the body which is a good thing if you have too much of it.

The Ugly Results of Long Term High Cholesterol

Too much bad cholesterol in the bloodstream means that excess cholesterol is deposited where it cannot be used. In this case it is usually in the arteries of the body where this occurs. This is known as plaque.

The build up of plaque on the inner walls of the arteries will reduce the diameter of the arteries. This has consequences for the heart as it has to work harder to push blood throughout the body. It can also have adverse affects on the extremities of the body as they do not get enough blood to stay healthy. As the walls of the arteries thicken the person is said to have a condition known as atherosclerosis.

The continuing increase in plaque will lead to more risk to life threatening conditions. For instance, if plaque breaks free of the inner lining of the walls it can block the artery. This will lead to a blood clot which could cause a stroke.