All about Cholesterol

There are several terms that people think of when they hear the word eggs, such as “taste good” “easy to cook” “nutritious”, etc. However, eggs had drawn nutrition fans’ attention in 2015; and now let’s find out why.

It’s because the most updated 2015-2020 American Dietary Guideline has removed the daily cholesterol limit, which is 300 mg, in the previous versions. But, why?

That’s because more recent studies have shown that blood cholesterol isn’t affected that much by daily diet, at least not to the extent that we used to think. Still, why?

Well, because we, as human, can make cholesterol ourselves! In fact, our liver, intestines, and almost all body cells make about 700mg of cholesterol in total daily. Let’s assume if someone’s daily diet contains 600 mg of cholesterol and only half of it will be digested and absorbed. That way, about 300mg of cholesterol coming from the diet will enter the blood. In comparison, we make twice as much cholesterols on our own as we consume from diets.

1 egg, depends on the size, contains about 200-250mg of cholesterol. If someone eats 2 eggs a day, which roughly provides 500mg of cholesterol. And only half of it, aka 250mg of cholesterol, will eventually enter the blood. If we think about it this way, 2 eggs per day doesn’t sound bad.

Attention!

1. If you’re a big meat eater, which is high in cholesterol, or any other seafood, it could be possible that majority of your blood cholesterol would come from your diets even if you didn’t consume any egg. Therefore, we need to look at all possible sources of cholesterol in our diets, not just the eggs.
2. Not everyone absorbs half amount of cholesterol from diets. Some people’s intestines have greater ability of absorbing cholesterol, whereas some people have less ability to do so. However, most people absorb half diet cholesterol into the blood. Therefore, make sure which category you fall under before you decide how many eggs you want to eat.
3. People who have hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, or hypertension, diet cholesterol needs to be limited. We can’t control how much cholesterol our bodies make internally, but we could control how much cholesterol we eat. After all, diet cholesterol is about 1/3 of blood cholesterol; therefore, we can’t ignore it completely.

Why do we bother about cholesterol?

Hmmm, the simplest answer is that high cholesterol is linked with cardiovascular disease. Let’s view all the blood vessels inside our body as a transportation system. LDL, aka the bad cholesterol, could be viewed as crazy drivers that cause traffic problems. On the other hand, HDL, aka the good cholesterol, can be viewed as the traffic police that organize the traffic. When there’s too many crazy drivers, the traffic will become worse and worse. Then cars can’t get to their destination, and sometimes certain routes will be completely jammed. If those routes were lead to important cities (like brain or heart), then the entire body will be put int danger (heart disease).

Then, how do we eliminate LDL and increase HDL?

In addition to a healthy balanced diet, we encourage more vegetables and less meat.

• Vegetables (Or beans, fruits, whole-grain) are rich in dietary fiber, which contains water-soluble fiber that hinder the absorbance of cholesterol.
• Vegetables contains phylosterol, which will compete with cholesterol in the intestines, and therefore will lower the absorbance rate of cholesterol
• Fats from vegetables, such as vegetable oil, nuts oil, will lower LDL. Fats from animal are high in saturated fat, which will increase the amount of LDL
• Eating more vegetables provide less calories than eating meat; hence it’s harder to gain weight. Eating more vegetables will also help with blood vessel clearing process and reduce the risk of developing chronic disease.

Tips:

• Consuming moderate amount of fish, which contains EPA and DHA, is considered good for our health as well. The amount should be limit to 2-3 times a week, and 2 serving each time
• Try to choose fresh natural food, instead of processed snacks. Many manufacturer/processors tend to use trans-fat in their products to lower cost and extend shelf-life. However, trans fat will not only increase LDL, but also decrease HDL
• Exercise at least 1 hour per day. Exercise increase HDL
• No smoking. Smoking will increase LDL.