Word: ldl
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...genetic makeup? About 15% of folks are born with a form of a liver enzyme that causes their HDL, or good cholesterol, level to go down in response to dietary fat. In most people the HDL level goes up, counterbalancing some of the bad effects of dietary fat on LDL--the dangerous cholesterol...
...LDL and triglycerides aren't quite the whole story either. Over the past few years, researchers have identified yet another form of fat that could rightly be labeled Bad Cholesterol II. Called lipoprotein (a), or Lp(a), it behaves like LDL in the body. But because Lp(a) levels have more to do with your genes than your diet, they can't easily be controlled. At best, doctors think they can use Lp(a) screening to find people who should be working extra hard to reduce their other heart-attack risks...
...that amount to toxic wastes--highly reactive oxygen molecules known as free radicals that can combine with otherwise innocent substances and transform them into killers. Free radicals may be responsible in part for the genetic damage that leads to some cancers. And they also appear to be what makes LDL and triglycerides so dangerous. When a free radical combines with one of these fatty molecules, the altered cholesterol turns into a biochemical cannonball that ricochets around the bloodstream, damaging the inner walls of vessels...
Like vitamin E, the flavonoids and the carotenoids appear to act as antioxidants, keeping LDL and triglycerides from being oxidized by free radicals. But they do so in different ways, explains Jeffrey Blumberg, a Tufts University nutritionist: "All those free radicals come in many varieties and affect different parts of the body. So you need many different antioxidants to protect yourself at different levels...
...example, he says, vitamin E, which is fat soluble, is incorporated into the LDL or triglyceride particle, forming a last line of defense against corruption by free radicals. Water-soluble flavonoids, by contrast, can be absorbed by most cells in the body, where they can presumably take free radicals out of circulation. But so far, these are only theories. All scientists know for sure is that people who eat foods rich in these two kinds of chemicals, flavonoids and carotenoids, seem to have less heart disease--and it's not even certain that there is a cause-and-effect relationship...