Even if you didn't eat any cholesterol, your liver would manufacture enough to meet your body's needs. High blood cholesterol is associated with the development of coronary heart disease, the number one killer in our society. Most heart disease is due to blockages in the arteries that supply blood to the heart muscle. Fat and cholesterol, circulating in the blood, are deposited in the inner walls of the arteries. Over the years, the arteries become narrower and narrower.
Cholesterol travels through the body in the blood stream packaged with protein.
L DLs carry cholesterol from the liver to other tissues and deposit excess cholesterol on artery walls, so this is the lousy form associated with heart disease. HDLs appear to carry cholesterol back to the liver to be broken down and excreted, rather than distributed in the body, so H DLs have come to be known as healthy cholesterol. When you have your cholesterol measured, your results will generally come back as one number, which actually reflects all the forms of cholesterol in your blood, but is most closely related to L DLs, the lousy guys. So it is generally assumed that if your total is high, your risk is up. Recently the National Cholesterol Education Program has recommended that doctors look at LDL and HDL numbers separately.