This is the most common reason why you may have elevated cholesterol levels. This is good news because it can be easily corrected. A high intake of fat and cholesterol in the diet is usually blamed for elevated blood cholesterol, but as you will learn, sugar and an excess intake of carbohydrate and trans fats are the real villains. Any excess calories we consume can be converted into cholesterol and triglycerides therefore if you eat too much and become overweight, you raise your risk of heart disease. Changing what you eat is your most powerful weapon against heart disease.
Excess Carbohydrate
Today it is common for most people to eat a lot of carbohydrate. This is found in foods such as grains, cereals, starches and sugar. One reason for this is because we are constantly told to reduce our fat intake; we must eat something else to replace fat, and usually this means eating more carbohydrate. Another reason is because many people are addicted to carbohydrate. Sugar is addictive, and the more we eat it the more we crave it. Carbohydrate rich foods are also quick and convenient. A common diet may consist of toast or cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, pasta, rice or potatoes for dinner, and biscuits, crackers or other sweets as snacks – not forgetting sugar in tea or coffee throughout the day.
It is true that we need carbohydrate for energy, but most of us are not athletes, and our sedentary lives never allow us to burn off this carbohydrate. Instead it is converted into body fat. It is also true that we are better off consuming complex carbohydrates, meaning it is better to eat wholegrain bread and pasta, and brown rice instead of their white, refined alternatives. However, this still usually results in too much carbohydrate in the diet, which is broken down into glucose.
When we get an excess of glucose into our bloodstream our body converts it into fat. Therefore, a high carbohydrate intake stimulates the production of fatty acids, which are joined together to form triglycerides. A high alcohol intake also raises cholesterol and triglyceride levels. You will learn that triglycerides are a major risk factor for heart disease. We all know that saturated fats are a really bad type of fat for our hearts. In fact not all saturated fats are bad. It is the long chain saturated fatty acids that are bad for our heart because they are sticky, and can therefore clog our arteries. You do not have to eat any fat at all to have high blood levels of these saturated fats because our body makes them out of excess sugar in our diet. These fats can then be converted into cholesterol. So now you know that eating too much sugar, starches and grains can raise your levels of cholesterol and triglycerides, putting you at great risk of heart disease. If you do not burn off this extra fat through physical activity, you will not only appear overweight; fat deposits will accumulate in organs such as your liver, pancreas, heart, kidneys and other organs. Fatty degeneration of organs can occur as a result of excess sugar intake. Fatty liver disease now affects approximately 20% of the population.
Trans Fatty Acids
Some fats are good for our heart, some fats are bad, and some are terrible. Trans fatty acids are the worst kind of fat you could eat. You may have heard of these fats, as they have been receiving a lot of publicity lately. They are believed to greatly increase the risk of heart disease and cancer. For now just briefly, unsaturated fatty acids in their natural state have a cis configuration. This means that at the position of the double bonds between carbon atoms in the fatty acid molecule, both hydrogen atoms attached to the carbons are on the same side of the molecule. In trans fatty acids, the hydrogen atoms attached to the carbons are on opposite sides of the molecule. The word trans means across, or on the other side, so if you were going on a trans Tasman holiday you might be going from Sydney to New Zealand.
The twisting of the unsaturated fatty acid molecule to create a trans fat occurs when the oil is heated to high temperatures, such as during frying and deep frying, and also during the commercial manufacture of vegetable oil and some margarines.
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