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Heart to Heart Quarterly Newsletter Volume 1 Issue 8 March 15, 1997
Charlie's Heart "Well Charlie, I never thought we would reach 75 years old. I've watched you dodge a lot of bullets in our time together. You did have enough sense though to make some serious changes as you got older and your knowledge of heart disease grew. Boy, am I glad!"
"Let's expand our knowledge a little more about preventing heart disease and perhaps even reversing heart desease.The first thing we need to do is define what cholesterol is and comes from. "Cholesterol is a soft, fat like sub- stance found in all the body's cells. It is used to form cell membranes, certain hormones and other necessary substances "People get cholesterol in two ways.
The body - primarily the liver - produces varying amounts, usually about 1,000 mg a .day. An additional 400 mg to 500 mg or more can come directly from foods. Foods from animals, especially egg yolks, meat, fish, poultry and whole milk dairy products, contain it; food from plants don't. Typically the body makes all the cholesterol it needs, so it's not something that people need to consume to maintain their health."
"Besides being present in human tissues, cholesterol is also found in the bloodstream. The blood transports cholesterol to and from various parts of the body. Hypercholesterolemia is the term for high layers of cholesterol in the blood." Charly, I know this is pretty basic information but wait until you see what high cholesterol can do to our arteries. Remember, Charlie, I only weigh a pound or two but I have the responsibility of pumping a couple of thousand gallons of blood per day throughout our body."
"Now that I have your attention, let's explore the relationship between the different cholesterol components and what they represent." "The levels of HDL and LDL in the blood are measured to evaluate the risk of arterosclerosis."
"Atherosclerosis is a general term for the thickening and hardening of arteries. Some hardening of arteries normally occurs when people grow older. Aterosclerosis , a type of arteriosclerosis, comes from the Greek word athero (meaning gruel or paste)
