Cholesterol is essential for every body function. Your body makes all your steroid hormones, including adrenalin, estrogen and testosterone from cholesterol. Cholesterol forms part of all your organs, including your heart and your brain. You can't live without it.
Most of your cholesterol doesn't come from food, but it's made every day by your liver. When you eat high cholesterol food, the liver reduces its own production to keep blood cholesterol level low and healthy.
Blood cholesterol can rise to dangerous levels by disordered cholesterol metabolism, which is a man-made disease, caused mainly by our degraded nutrition and sedentary lifestyle.
We have low-density lipoprotein (LDL), which is "bad" cholesterol and high-density liproprotein (HLD), which is "good" cholesterol.
What level can we consider to be healthy? In the mid 80's, the American Heart Association and other US health authorities recommended below 200 mg/dl. Today we know that even 200 mg/dl is too high. Death rates from cardiovascular disease starts to rise as cholesterol goes above 168 mg/dl.
According to a very comprehensive study by Dr. Jeremiah Stamler, which involved 356,000 men in 28 US cities, total cholesterol rises over 200 mg/dl when they are in their 30's and reach about 220 mg/dl by age 45. It is obvious that sitting like a slug makes you ripe for disease. How do athletes perform? Recent research shows that average cholesterol levels in male and female bodybuilders and runners, ranged between 158 mg/dl and 183 mg/dl.
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