Controlling Cholesterol For Dummies E-Book

Carol Ann Rinzler

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Seitenzahl: 359

Beschreibung

The latest ways to lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease Need to get your cholesterol in check? You'll find the latest information about cholesterol, including treatments, drug information, and dietary advice, in Controlling Cholesterol For Dummies, 2nd Edition, an easy-to-understand guide to cholesterol control. You'll learn how to lower your numbers and maintain healthy cholesterol levels. You'll also find out how to eat and exercise properly, use vitamins and supplements, and quit unhealthy habits. You'll find out cholesterol's positive functions and why too much can be a bad thing. You can also assess your cholesterol risk by taking your age, sex, ethnicity, and family history into consideration. Find out what you need to ask your doctor about stress tests, ECBT, and angiograms to check for plaque buildup. Design a cholesterol-crushing diet and understand which foods can help you lower your numbers. Find out how smoking, alcohol, exercise, excess weight, supplements, and prescription medications affect your cholesterol levels. Find out how to: * Assess your cholesterol risk * Understand the benefits and risks associated with cholesterol * Design and adhere to a cholesterol-lowering diet * Avoid dangerous drugs * Reduce your risk of heart attack * Choose fats and fibers correctly * Check for plaque buildup Complete with lists of ten important cholesterol websites, ten nutrition websites, ten cholesterol myths, ten landmarks in cholesterol history, ten foods that raise your cholesterol, and ten foods that lower your cholesterol, Controlling Cholesterol For Dummies, 2nd Edition will help keep your cholesterol levels under control for good!

Leseprobe

Controlling Cholesterol For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

by Carol Ann Rinzler

Controlling Cholesterol For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Published byWiley Publishing, Inc.111 River St.Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2008 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2008924088

ISBN: 978-0-470-22759-6

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4

About the Author

Carol Ann Rinzler is the author of Nutrition For Dummies, now in its 4th edition, as well as Heartburn and Reflux For Dummies, and more than 20 other books on food and health. A former nutrition columnist for the New York Daily News, Carol lives in New York with her husband Perry Luntz, author of Whiskey and Spirits For Dummies, and their amiable cat, Katy.

Dedication

To my husband, Perry Luntz, for all the usual reasons.

Author’s Acknowledgments

Every For Dummies book is a work of many hands, so I have many people to thank for this one.

First in line, Michael Lewis, my Acquisitions Editor, who moved this new edition of Controlling Cholesterol For Dummies from an idea to a reality. Then there’s my wonderful project editor, Natalie Harris, whose scientific intelligence and editorial diligence kept things on track. My many thanks to Copy Editor Carrie Burchfield whose keen eye and fine-point blue pen are a writer’s delight. And let’s not forget Wiley’s hardworking proofreaders and page layout technicians.

Like others who write about health and medicine, I am enormously grateful to Martin Graf, MD, and Bonnie Taub-Dix, the experts who’ve generously taken the time to read the manuscript for accuracy. I also appreciate the assistance of the professionals at the American Heart Association: Aaron Talent, Tagni McRae, and Taylor Morris.

Finally, I would like to put in a word of appreciation for all the anonymous folks at the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the similar agencies up there in our neighbor to the north, Canada. Without their efforts, you and I would be left without the numbers we need to construct intelligent guidelines for a healthy life. So let’s hear it for these guys: Hip! Hip! Hooray!

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development

Project Editor: Natalie Faye Harris

(Previous Edition: Tonya Maddox Cupp)

Acquisitions Editor: Michael Lewis

(Previous Edition: Natasha Graf)

Copy Editor: Carrie A. Burchfield

(Previous Edition: Mike Baker)

Editorial Program Coordinator: Erin Calligan Mooney

Technical Editors: Martin W. Graf, MD; Bonnie Taub-Dix, MA, RD, CDN, Director of BTD Nutrition Consultants, New York

Editorial Manager: Christine Meloy Beck

Editorial Assistants: Joe Niesen, David Lutton, Leeann Harney

Cover Photos: Daniela Richardson

Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Erin Smith

Layout and Graphics: Carl Byers, Reuben W. Davis, Alissa D. Ellet, Melissa K. Jester, Christine Williams

Proofreaders: David Faust, Penny Stuart

Indexer: Cheryl Duksta

Special HelpSarah Faulkner, Alissa Schwipps, Jennifer Tucci

Publishing and Editorial for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher, Consumer Dummies

Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director, Consumer Dummies

Kristin A. Cocks, Product Development Director, Consumer Dummies

Michael Spring, Vice President and Publisher, Travel

Kelly Regan, Editorial Director, Travel

Publishing for Technology Dummies

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher, Dummies Technology/General User

Composition Services

Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Contents

Title

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

What You’re Not to Read

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organized

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I : Getting Up Close and Personal with Cholesterol

Chapter 1: Mapping the Heart Land

Ladies and Gentlemen, Meet Your Heart

Attack of the Killer Heart Disease

Getting to the Point of This Book

Chapter 2: Comparing Cholesterol’s Risks and Benefits

Shaking Hands with Cholesterol

Believe It or Not, You Need Cholesterol

Breaking the Bad News

Focusing on Other Blood Baddies

Warning! Heart Attack in Progress!

Chapter 3: Rating Your Cholesterol-Related Risk

Categorizing Cholesterol as a Risk Factor

Adding Up Your Basic Cholesterol Numbers

Defining Higher, Lower, Medium — and Just Right

Listing Other Risk Factors

Evaluating Your Own Risk Factors File

Heart Attack Risk Factors at a Glance

Checking for Plaque Buildup

Calculating Your Heart Attack Risk

Part II : Eating Your Way to Lower Cholesterol

Chapter 4: Writing Rules for a Cholesterol-Lowering Diet

Being Prudent

Doing the Diet Two-Step

Adding TLC

Finding Diet Aids

Chapter 5: Building a Cholesterol-Lowering Diet

Making Your Game Plan

Choosing the Fat That Fits

Factoring in the Fiber

You Know the Deal: Everything in Moderation

Chapter 6: Pinning Down the “How-To’s” for a Cholesterol-Lowering Diet

Avoiding Certain Foods (Or At Least Eating Them in Very Small Portions)

Plant-Produced Foods That Help Control Cholesterol

Slicing the Cholesterol from Your Dinner Plate

Part III : Leading a Cholesterol-Lowering Lifestyle

Chapter 7: Weighing Weight’s Weight on Cholesterol

Presenting the Health Risks Posed by Extra Pounds

Figuring Out Who’s Fat

Making Lifestyle Changes

Tossing Out the Scales

Chapter 8: Exercising Options to Control Your Cholesterol

Sweating the Definition: Exercise

Pairing Exercise and . . .

Riding the Stationary Bike into the Sunset

Chapter 9: Weeding Out Tobacco’s Role in High Cholesterol

Enumerating Smoking’s Health Hazards

Identifying the Smokers

Breaking the Habit

Choosing How to Quit

Chapter 10: The Grape, the Grains, and Your Cholesterol

Toasting to Your Heart

Identifying Alcohol’s Heart-Healthy Compound

Drinking in Moderation

Checking Out the Risks, Too

Rating Alcohol Beverages as Food

Part IV : Cutting Cholesterol with Nutrients and Medicine

Chapter 11: Vitamins, Minerals, and Other Good Stuff

Identifying Supplements

Popping a Vitamin and Mineral Pill May Help Lower Cholesterol

Fighting Cholesterol with Dietary Fiber

Phabulous Phytochemicals

Waiting for the Next Study

Chapter 12: Prescribing Lower Cholesterol

Introducing Cholesterol-Lowering Medicines

Comparing the Benefits of Cholesterol-Buster Drugs

Picking the Perfect Pill Candidate

Chapter 13: Identifying Meds That Raise Cholesterol

Hankering for Hormones

Lowering Fluids with Diuretics

Sabotaging Cholesterol Therapy

Narrowing Your Options

Getting the Last Word

Chapter 14: Mouth-Watering Morsels for Special Occasions

Little Bites a Cardiologist Would Love

Tasty Recipes to Impress Your Guests

Cinnamon and Spice Almonds

Citrus-Scented Marinated Olives

Skewered Scallop Seviche with Avocado

Crudités with Mango Salsa and Creamy Avocado Dip

Mango Salsa

Creamy Avocado Dip

Mushroom Pâté

Part V: The Part of Tens

Chapter 15: Ten Clicks to Reliable Cholesterol Information

The American Heart Association

Brand Name Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs

Center for Drug Evaluation and Research

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

The Mayo Clinic

MedicineNet.com

MedlinePlus.com

National Cholesterol Education Program

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

Stedman’s Online Medical Dictionary

WebMD

Chapter 16: Ten Nutrition Web Sites

The American Cancer Society

American Council on Science and Health, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest

The American Dietetic Association

The American Heart Association

The Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network

The Food and Drug Administration

Food and Nutrition Information Center

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Nutrient Database

The Weight Control Information Network

Chapter 17: Ten Cholesterol Myths

Most of the Cholesterol in Your Body Comes from Food

All Fatty Foods Raise Your Cholesterol

Women Never Have to Worry about Their Cholesterol

Children Have No Cholesterol Problems

Eating More Dietary Fiber Lowers Blood Cholesterol

Cholesterol Is the Only Thing That Leads to Plaque in Your Arteries

Red Meat Has More Cholesterol Than Chicken or Turkey

A Heart Attack Is the Only Health Risk Associated with High Cholesterol

Changing Your Diet Is the Only Way to Control Your Cholesterol

You Can Never Be Too Rich or Too Thin, and Your Cholesterol Can Never Be Too Low

Chapter 18: Ten (Okay, Eleven) “Eureka!” Cholesterol Moments

1957: The Prudent Diet

1958: Introducing Cholesterol Busters

1971: Naming Cholesterol an Official Risk Factor for Heart Attack

1971: MRFIT Gets Going

1984: Indicting Hypercholesterolemia

1985: Recognizing the Risk from LDLs

1985–1987: Establishing the National Cholesterol Education Program

1986: Unveiling Statins

1988, 1993, 2001: ATP I, ATP II, ATP III

2001: Baycol Bombs

2001–2004: Anti-Cholesterol Combo Pills

Appendix: Calories and Other Nutrients in Food

The Nutrition Chart

The USDA Nutrient Database

: Further Reading

Introduction

What a difference a day makes. Or, to be more precise, 2,138 days. In the years since the first edition of Controlling Cholesterol For Dummies appeared, the medical and nutritional experts have (among other things):

Changed the numbers that say, “This is a healthy cholesterol level.”

Revised the definition of “bad cholesterol” (low-density lipoproteins, or LDLs) to reflect the discovery that some “bad” cholesterol may actually be just fine.

Introduced new combo drugs that zap both the cholesterol you get from food and the cholesterol your own body makes.

Re-evaluated the role of hormones in raising or lowering the risk of heart disease.

Clarified some of the differences between how male and female bodies handle cholesterol.

Changed the drill on which vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients may (or may not) reduce cholesterol levels.

Reaffirmed the virtues of the Mediterranean Diet and moderate drinking.

Added some new items to the list of foods that fight cholesterol.

Introduced new “functional” foods that fight cholesterol (including a chocolate laced with cholesterol-buster fatty acids).

Set up some new Web sites to provide cholesterol guidance on everything from defining cholesterol terms (what is a triglyceride, anyway?) to evaluating your own personal risk of a cholesterol-related heart attack.

In other words, the people who rule The World Of Cholesterol Medicine have been very busy little bees. Which is why you are holding this book in your hands. It contains tons of new info to help you control your cholesterol, keep your arteries as clear as a newborn babe’s, and thus keep your heart beating merrily along for years to come.

When it comes to solving life’s little problems — whether to eat that chocolate cake, whether to dye your hair orange, or whether to lower your cholesterol — I choose to follow the ancient Greek mantra, “Moderation in all things.”

In other words, I get to eat the cake about once a week; my hair is gray/

blonde, not orange; and this book is called Controlling Cholesterol For Dummies rather than, say, Knocking Cholesterol Down to Zero For Dummies.

The simple fact is that no one is perfect, but most people can be much, much better. The same principle holds true for your cholesterol levels. When cholesterol is the topic, lower is almost always better. (I talk about a few exceptions throughout this book.) But if you set a goal you can never reach — dropping 50 points off your cholesterol reading by two weeks from Tuesday — you’ll fall off the wagon long before your cholesterol level falls a milligram.

My point? This book is eminently reasonable and moderate; I designed it to help you (working with your doctor, of course) keep your cholesterol within safe boundaries.

About This Book

Controlling Cholesterol For Dummies, 2nd Edition, doesn’t ask you to turn yourself into an anti-cholesterol fanatic — the kind of annoying person who sneers at other people’s dinner choices while acting superior about his own. (Actually, sneering and acting superior at the same time is a neat trick if you can do it. Just don’t try it on your friends at dinner.)

My goal with this book is to lay out the reasons why it makes sense to control your cholesterol and then present reasonable and moderate strategies to help you reach your goal.

Some of the information, like how to translate the cholesterol numbers you get on your annual physical, is simple. Other stuff, such as guidelines you can use to determine whether you’re a candidate for a heart attack — or for cholesterol-lowering medication — is more complex.

Throughout this book, the emphasis is on the idea that (here comes another catchy slogan) “Knowledge is power.” In this case, it’s the power to lower your cholesterol and reduce your risk of heart attack.

Conventions Used in This Book

Don’t get me wrong. I write about nutrition, food, and health for a living, but I have to admit that some books and articles about these subjects can be pretty boring. (Unless the author is instructing you how to lose 30 pounds in 30 days or lower your cholesterol by 50 points in 50 minutes. But I deal with non-fiction subjects. Sorry.) I try to remedy this sleepy state of affairs with this book. So, if a few of my jokes don’t tickle your funny bone, forgive me. After all, how funny can high cholesterol and plaque-filled arteries be?

To make this book as easy to use as possible, the following conventions are followed throughout:

All Web addresses appear in monofont.

When this book was printed, some Web addresses may have needed to break across two lines of text. If that happened, rest assured that I haven’t put in any extra characters (such as hyphens) to indicate the break. So, when using one of these Web addresses, just type exactly what you see in this book, pretending the line break doesn’t exist.

New terms appear in italics and are closely followed by an easy-to- understand definition. I also use italics for emphasis once in a while.

Bold font highlights keywords in bulleted lists or identifies the action parts of numbered lists.

When you find information about the nutrient content of brand-name products in this book, you can assume that what you’re reading was right when I wrote it. But here’s the catch: Sometimes products change practically overnight. So use the numbers here as a guide, but be sure to check the product label when you shop. As poker players like to say, “Trust your friends — but cut the cards.”

What You’re Not to Read

Yes, you read that right. You don’t have to read everything contained within these snazzy black and yellow covers. Any text in a gray box is a sidebar. Sidebars contain “nice to know” (and may I add, pretty interesting) material, but skipping them won’t take away from your understanding of the subject at hand.

Additionally, anything marked with a Technical Stuff icon deals with nuts-and-bolts medical info that simply provides background information and in-depth scientific explanations about various subjects. You may skip these bits of text as well (although they provide some great info, if I do say so myself).

Foolish Assumptions

A writer has to make a few assumptions about her audience, and I’ve made a few assumptions about you. If you’ve picked up this book, I’m guessing that you fall into one or more of these categories:

You’ve been told by your doctor that your cholesterol levels aren’t up to par, and you have to do something about it.

You’ve heard all the talk about high cholesterol in recent years, and you want to find out what all the fuss is about.

You routinely buy every For Dummies book that hits the shelf, and this one is next on your list.

You’re a health-conscious individual.

You’re concerned about heart disease, and controlling the ol’ cholesterol levels has become very important to you.

I’ve also assumed that you don’t have a level of health-related knowledge to rival the U.S. Surgeon General’s. If this assumption is correct, you’ve come to the right place. Easy-to-follow explanations are a hallmark of this book.

But if you approach the subject of controlling cholesterol with some information already tucked away in that brain of yours, don’t worry — I’ve included plenty of info in this book for you as well.

How This Book Is Organized

This summary aims to whet your appetite for cholesterol control by giving you a glimpse of what’s ahead in the 14 regular chapters, four — count ’em, four — Part of Tens chapters, and one bang-up, nutrition-chart appendix. Use this section as a thumbnail guide to what you want to read first.

Part I: Getting Up Close and Personal with Cholesterol

Chapter 1 is, well, the first chapter. It explains why you should read this book — to reduce your risk of heart attack. Chapter 2 explains the good side of cholesterol (yes, cholesterol has a good side), as well as the problems it can cause. Chapter 3 says, “Okay, now figure out your own personal risk of cholesterol-related heart disease.”

Don’t skip Chapter 3: The news may be better than you think. And hey, if it isn’t, the rest of the book tells you how to reverse the picture and improve your odds for a long, healthy life.

Part II: Eating Your Way to Lower Cholesterol

Yes, your diet pulls some weight when it comes to your cholesterol numbers. Actually, your diet matters big time. Chapter 4 lays out principles for a cholesterol-lowering diet proposed by all the usual suspects, oops, I mean experts. Chapter 5 tells you how to assemble a cholesterol-lowering diet. Chapter 6 tells how to apply the information in chapters 4 and 5 to real life.

Part III: Leading a Cholesterol-Lowering Lifestyle

Diet matters, but so does your lifestyle. Chapter 7 is a very important explanation of the relationship between your weight and your cholesterol levels. Chapter 8 describes how movin’ your bod can help push down your cholesterol.

Chapter 9 is not, repeat not, a both-sides-of-the-issue type of chapter. Smoking does many bad things, including lifting your cholesterol levels, so this chapter pulls no punches.

In Chapter 10, I head back into moderate territory — moderate drinking that is. In study after study, sober researchers have found that moderate drinking — one drink a day for a woman, two drinks a day for a man — appears to increase your “good” cholesterol and lower your risk of heart attack. Check it out.

Part IV: Cutting Cholesterol with Nutrients and Medicine

Chapter 11 is all about nutritional supplements, including vitamins and how they affect your cholesterol, sometimes in surprising ways. Chapter 12 is a primer on cholesterol-lowering prescription drug products — the good, the bad, and (sorry about this) the truly ugly. Chapter 13 is a guide to medicines that may adversely affect your cholesterol (and your heart). Chapter 14 is filled with recipes for fun, heart-healthy party foods so that you can continue to control your cholesterol while celebrating special occasions.

Part V: The Part of Tens

I just love this part of the book because it lets me draw up lists of odd and unusual factoids that I may not otherwise be able to include.

Chapter 15 lists ten good Web sites for heart and cholesterol info. Chapter 16 has ten nifty nutrition Web sites. Chapter 17 is one of my favorites — ten cholesterol myths. Chapter 18 tickles my historical fancy with ten really important moments in cholesterol history.

This part also includes an appendix, which contains a chart of more than 500 foods and the cholesterol, fat, and fiber content for common servings. The material, from my old friend, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), is invaluable when you’re putting together heart-friendly meals. So use it.

For even more info on even more foods, check out the USDA Nutrient Database (which I discuss in Chapter 16) on the Web at www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.pl.

Icons Used in This Book

Throughout this book you find a collection of handy icons in the margins. These icons highlight particularly useful information and can help you get the most out of your copy of Controlling Cholesterol For Dummies, 2nd Edition.

This icon makes your life easier. It signals an activity that saves you time or a bit of knowledge that I’ve gained from experience.

Think danger! This icon warns you to tread carefully. Pay close attention: Your health could turn out worse for the wear if you don’t follow this advice.

I use this important icon to call out basic rules and information that you can file away for future reference whenever you encounter related situations.

You can skip this stuff if you want, but if you want to get really down and dirty with cholesterol details, dive in.

Where to Go from Here

No, you don’t have to start at Chapter 1 and read straight through this book. As with all For Dummies books, this one is set up so you can read any chapter, in any order, and still come out ahead.

Sound good? Then keep on reading (starting wherever you want, of course).

Part I

Getting Up Close and Personal with Cholesterol

In this part . . .

To do the best job of controlling your cholesterol, you need to have a handle on the basics — info such as what cholesterol is, where it comes from, what it does, and why some varieties are more threatening than others. And being a Serious Seeker of Knowledge, you probably want to be able to perform a realistic evaluation of your own risk of developing cholesterol-related problems. The info you need is right here in this part. Go for it.

Chapter 2

Comparing Cholesterol’s Risks and Benefits

In This Chapter

Locating the cholesterol in the human body

Proving that cholesterol has a good side

Confirming cholesterol’s risks

Identifying other harmful compounds in your blood

Mastering CPR

This chapter starts off by covering the ways in which your body uses cholesterol for everything from powering your brain to building your sex hormones. Then — fair is fair — you can find out why something so good can also be hazardous to your heart health.

Finally, because cholesterol isn’t the only bad guy to be found in your blood, I provide you with a short description of some of the other unhealthy criminals floating through your bloodstream.

After you’ve made your way through the heavy stuff, reward yourself with a bit of fun by taking the heart art quiz at the end of this chapter. The quiz asks you to match literary, musical, and other heart-related titles with their authors.

Shaking Hands with Cholesterol

Cholesterol is the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of the nutrition world. This fat-like substance is both essential for your healthy body and potentially hazardous to your heart.

Making the most of cholesterol’s Jekyll-like good characteristics while counteracting its Hyde-like bad impulses can be a delicate but not impos- sible balancing act. The task begins with understanding how and where cholesterol does its good work and how and where it can cause problems. Begin your mission, in the true scientific spirit, at the beginning.

Double trouble

The split-personality title character in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), embodies both good and evil — the two sides of human nature. (Pop quiz: Which personality is the good guy? Which one isn’t? See the end of this sidebar for the answers.)

This sort of duality isn’t uncommon in religion, philosophy, and literature. For example, the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl was both male and female. And Janus, the Roman god of doors, had two faces, one in the front of his head and one in back, because every door faces two ways — in and out. By the way, Janus is the namesake of January, the door to the New Year.

The Chinese symbol of two-sidedness is the yin and the yang. The yin symbolizes the female, and the yang stands for the male. The yin and yang also symbolize the coexistence of other opposing concepts, such as life and death, good and evil, black and white, and love and hate. What makes this even more interesting is the fact that the word yin, which sounds totally non-Western, is a variant on the Scottish word for one.

So, you can see that cholesterol has some company when it comes to having two sides to a story. And Jekyll is the good guy; Hyde isn’t.

Where cholesterol comes from

Yes, you get some cholesterol from food, but the curious fact is that most of the cholesterol in your blood and body tissues is produced right in your very own liver. Your liver uses the proteins, fats, and carbohydrates in food to manufacture and churn out about 1 gram (1,000 milligrams) of cholesterol a day.

How cholesterol travels around your body

Whether your cholesterol comes from food or your liver, it travels through your bloodstream in particles called lipoproteins, a name derived from lipos (the Greek word for “fat”) and protos (Greek for “first” or “most important”).

The fatty substances in lipoproteins include cholesterol and triglycerides, the most common fatty substance in the human body (more about triglycerides in the section “Focusing on Other Blood Baddies”). The proteins that combine with fats to produce lipoproteins are called apolipoproteins, often abbreviated as apo.

Lipoproteins develop through five distinct phases as they mature into the particles that carry cholesterol around your body:

Phase 1: Chylomicrons

Phase 2: Very low-density lipoproteins (VLDLs)

Phase 3: Intermediate-density lipoproteins (IDLs)

Phase 4: Low-density lipoproteins (LDLs)

Phase 5: High-density lipoproteins (HDLs)

How does a chylomicron become a VLDL, then an IDL, then an LDL, and finally, maybe, an HDL? The following roadmap marks the route.

Bringing up baby lipoproteins

A lipoprotein is born as a chylomicron, a particle that your intestinal cells assemble from the proteins and fats you eat. Chylomicrons are very, very low-density particles.

Why are some lipoproteins called low-density and others high-density?

The term density refers to a lipoprotein’s weight.

Protein weighs more than fat.

Lipoproteins containing proportionately less protein than fat are low-density lipoproteins, also known as LDLs. LDLs are the “bad” particles that carry cholesterol into your arteries.

Lipoproteins containing proportionately more protein than fat are high-density lipoproteins, also known as HDLs. HDLs are the “good” particles that ferry cholesterol out of your body.

Now, back to chylomicrons. These lipoproteins start out with very little protein and a lot of light and fluffy fat and cholesterol. But as they flow through your bloodstream from your intestines on their way to your liver (your body’s lipoprotein factory), the chylomicrons release their fats, known as triglycerides, into your blood.

The stripped-down chylomicron, also known as a chylomicron remnant, still has its cholesterol and protein. Now, the remnant slides into your liver, and fat comes back into the picture.

Moving through the fat factory

As anyone who has ever read a nutrient chart knows, liver (as a food) is very high in fat and cholesterol. In fact, your liver is a veritable fat and cholesterol factory that collects fat fragments from your blood and uses them to make cholesterol and new fats that your body can use to build tissue and perform other physiological functions.

The next few sections explain exactly how lipoproteins are made.

Putting the fats in lipoproteins (and taking them out again)

When the chylomicron hits the liver, it picks up fat particles and mutates into the largest kind of lipoprotein, a fluffy particle called a very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL).

Then your liver sends the VLDL out into the wide world — your body. As the VLDL travels far and wide, it drops globs of fat, picks up globs of cholesterol, and changes into a slightly smaller, heavier particle called an intermediate low-density lipoprotein (IDL), and then a slightly smaller, heavier low-density lipoprotein (LDL).

The last step in the transformation of the baby lipoprotein (the chylomicron) occurs when an LDL has dropped so much fat and cholesterol into body tissue that it’s mostly protein. Now, you’re looking at a high-density lipoprotein (HDL).

Naming the proteins in lipoproteins

The primary proteins in VLDLs, IDLs, and LDLs belong to a class of apolipoproteins called apoB. The primary proteins in HDLs belong to a class of apolipoproteins called apoA. Other less prominent apolipoproteins found in lipoproteins are apoC and apoE.

You may have heard about a blood test for apoA; this test is interesting because a high level of apoA indicates a high level of protective HDLs (the “good” particles that haul cholesterol out of your body).

Pinning a blue ribbon on good lipoproteins

HDLs truly deserve the name “good cholesterol.” These particles don’t carry cholesterol into your arteries for the simple reason that they’re so compact and dense that they can’t squeeze through the spaces in the walls of your arteries. As a result, HDLs — and their cholesterol — travel away from your arteries and out of your body with the rest of your, um, solid waste.

What a neat set of facts to park in the back of your brain for the next time you’re at a party and someone asks you to explain the differences between VLDLs, IDLs, LDLs, and HDLs. “Well,” you can say, “it’s all a question of density, which, as you know, means. . . .” Don’t you just love being the smartest kid in class?

The good news about HDLs

You can think of HDLs as scavenger molecules that remove cholesterol from the arteries. Having a lot of HDLs reduces your risk of heart attack regardless of your total cholesterol levels.

In fact, X-ray studies have shown that people who raise their HDLs by exercising, stopping smoking, or taking medication not only reduce the cholesterol in the arteries but also remove the plaque — thus opening the arteries.