Word: ldl
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...make things more complicated, researchers discovered that cholesterol travels around the body in two major forms: low-density lipoprotein (LDL), the kind that does most of the damage, and high-density lipoprotein (HDL), which actually seems to keep arteries clean. Beyond that, another class of fats, known as triglycerides, also circulates in the blood, doing more or less the same kind of damage as LDL...
Doctors then began recommending foods and activities that drive down LDL and triglycerides (eat less meat, cream and butter--one recommendation that has never changed--add olive oil and fish to the diet) and at the same time push up HDL (get more exercise and lose weight...
Then came the news that taking benign foods like vegetable and peanut oils and hydrogenating them--a process that stiffens them to make stick margarine, peanut butter and solid shortening--transforms them into substances known as trans-fatty acids, which can drive LDL and triglyceride levels through the roof. Trans-fatty acids are not technically fats, which means, astonishingly, that a food labeled FAT FREE may be bursting with stuff that can give you heart disease. The fact that stick margarine is bad doesn't mean butter is suddenly good. Says Dr. Walter Willett, head of nutrition at the Harvard...
...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...
Every year since 1900, with only one exception (1918, when the influenza epidemic claimed more lives), heart disease has had the dubious honor of being the U.S.'s leading killer. Lowering cholesterol levels, specifically the low-density lipoproteins (LDL) that make meats and butter-laden desserts so irresistible to the palate but so hazardous to the heart, was the first step to slowing down the disease. But now physicians are shifting their attention to LDL's do-good partner, high-density lipoprotein (HDL), encouraged by early evidence suggesting it can not only clean out fatty deposits within blood-vessel walls...