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Cholesterol And Fats : The Whole Truth

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Cholesterol and Fats: The Whole Truth Are all fats bad? That is what many people think. When trying to lose weight, or become healthier, dieters think they need to eliminate all fat from their diets. This is not correct, there are good fats and bad fats, and the body needs the good ones to function properly. Then, there is cholesterol, it is hard to keep which type is good and which type is bad straight. Actually, they are both good, if they are maintained at the correct, healthy levels. A person has to eat the good fats and stay away from the bad ones in order to help their body maintain healthy cholesterol levels.
Lipids are important because of all the essential functions they perform in the body. They contribute to the structure of …show more content…

These include essential fatty acids (EFAs), linolenic and linoleic acid, which the body needs and cannot make on its own and has to get from the foods a person eats (Physicians Committee, n.d.). Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids, have many benefits. Some of the benefits are lowering the risk of heart disease and high blood pressure, helping with joint pain, lower depression levels, better visual and neurological development in infants, the possibility of improving lung function and improved mental skills, and they help to protect against Alzheimer’s and Dementia (WebMD, 2014). Research is still being done to determine all of the possible benefits of the EFAs.
Cholesterol, a lipid that lives in cell membranes and synthesizes hormones and bile salts, is made in the liver, the body makes all of the cholesterol that it needs, but it can also be found in animal proteins. There are two different types of cholesterol; the good cholesterol, High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, and the bad cholesterol, Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (American Heart Association, 2014). LDL and HDL are lipoproteins that carry the cholesterol where it needs to go in the body. When a person has a higher than normal amount of LDL cholesterol he or she has a higher risk of plaque growth and atherosclerosis. HDL cholesterol helps to remove LDL cholesterol, helping to bring it back down to a normal level, in turn helping

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