Areena Haris
Period 4 P.E
Absent Article for Friday April 26, 2013
Cholestrol: Fatty and Deathly
Cholesterol, a waxy substance produced by the liver and found in certain foods, is needed to make vitamin D and some hormones, build cell walls, and create bile salts that help you digest fat. Your liver produces about 1,000 milligrams of cholesterol a day but it's hard to avoid cholesterol entirely because so many foods contain it. Too much cholesterol in the body can lead to serious problems like heart disease. Many factors can contribute to high cholesterol, but the good news is there are things you can do to control them. Cholesterol, a type of lipid, is found in foods from animal sources. This means that eggs, meats, and whole-fat dairy products (including milk, cheese, and ice cream) are loaded with cholesterol and vegetables, fruits, and grains contain none. Because cholesterol can't travel alone through the bloodstream, it has to combine with certain proteins. These proteins act like trucks, picking up the cholesterol and transporting it to different parts of the body. When this happens, the cholesterol and protein form a lipoprotein together. The two most important types of lipoproteins are high-density lipoproteins ( HDL) and low-density lipoproteins ( LDL). You might have heard people call LDL cholesterol "bad cholesterol" and HDL cholesterol "good cholesterol" because of their very different effects on the body. Most cholesterol is LDL cholesterol, and this