Word: ldl
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...Rogosin Institute, Lewis became a guinea pig in an experimental treatment program. Once a week he would drive to the hospital to undergo a procedure called LDL-pheresis, a filtering process that removes from the blood the most dangerous form of cholesterol, known as LDL (for low-density lipoprotein). Now, after a year of treatments, Lewis is remarkably improved. His once crippling angina is "almost nonexistent," he reports. Thick deposits of cholesterol that used to be visible on his hands have largely vanished. He has resumed physical activity. "I'm walking half a mile in eight or nine minutes...
...alternative approach to unclogging the arteries is based on what scientists have learned about cholesterol. Plaques are more likely to form when blood cholesterol is high, and particularly when the cholesterol takes the form known as "low-density lipoprotein" (LDL). By lowering the levels of cholesterol in the blood or by ensuring that most of it occurs as "high density lipoprotein" (HDL), the risk of heart attack can be substantially reduced. Although, several drugs have been developed to improve blood cholesterol levels, most have been associated with severe side effects...
...person eats too many saturated fats, however, liver cells suppress the production of LDL receptors. Cholesterol then collects in artery walls in plaques, the hallmark of atherosclerosis. Conversely, a low-cholesterol diet stimulates the output of new receptors, thereby preventing heart disease...
...rare inherited disorder. Children with the disease have blood-cholesterol levels six to ten times normal and can suffer heart attacks as early as age two. By comparing skin cells from victims with those of healthy people, the two scientists traced the problem to an absence or deficiency of LDL receptors, proteins that stud the outer membranes of most cells, particularly those of the liver. Then they decoded the complex minuet that takes place between the receptor and its LDL particle. Says Baltimore: "That was important for understanding how cells communicate with their environment...
...popularly regarded as an enemy, the body needs it to manufacture new cell membranes, steroid hormones and bile acids. Made primarily in the liver and also obtained through food, cholesterol travels through the bloodstream in round bundles of fat and protein called lipoproteins. Like Venus's-flytraps, vacant LDL receptors snare the passing packets. The lipoproteins are rapidly broken down in the cell, and the cholesterol is freed for use, while the receptor returns to the membrane, ready for prey...