by P.G Mayora
These days people are becoming ever more aware of the importance of nutrition and healthy lifestyle, with thousands of people turning to vegetarianism every week, and looking to good nutrition instead of relying on drugs to prevent and cure ailments and diseases as well as keeping healthy.
In this day and age with environmental and lifestyle factors having just as much of a profound effect on health as nutrition and diet has. This is all well and good, but the problem is that the vast majority of these people have very little or no understanding or knowledge of what they really need to do for perfect health, nutrition and how it effects the body and its processes.
They think that lots of fresh fruit and vegetables is enough because of the constant reminders by experts on TV telling them 5 portions of fruit & veg a day and to a certain extent this is absolutely true, but that is only the tip of the iceberg as far as keeping your mind and body in the best condition possible.
There are many more things that the general public need to know, as it is very confusing, because you have scientists or experts telling you one week that this good for you and then a short time latter telling you that it is not. Even with foods that are universally considered healthy there are still so many contradictions. I would like go through and talk about some of these things in turn. Things that they should know, but dont! First off is cholesterol
I think that most people have a basic understanding of what cholesterol is, that it is a fat related substance that circulates in the blood, too much of which clogs the arteries and is caused by bad diet and too much saturated fats and that high is bad and low is good.
But as we know cholesterol is essential for good health. It is a normal component of most body tissues, especially those of the brain, nervous system, liver and blood. The vast majority of which ends up in the cells where it is needed to perform vital metabolic and structural functions. Some is changed into vitamin D, some is bonded with protein, making lipoprotein.
These lipoproteins are the circulating form of cholesterol. Most people know that there are two forms of cholesterol, high density lipoprotein (HDL) which is the good one. This kind transports from the cells back to the liver where it can be disposed of. Then there is low density lipoprotein (LDL) the bad kind, this is the one that clogs the arteries.
When there is high amounts of (LDL) that is when the problems start, disorders such as coronary heart diseases (heart attack, high blood pressure etc). But on the other hand at the other end of the scale, very low cholesterol can be just as bad ! For example it can lower testosterone levels and according to one Japanese research group , once cholesterol levels go below a certain point the risk of strokes are increased. A finnish researcher named Jykri Penttinen found that low levels were associated with higher rates of depression and suicides. It has also been documented that people with low cholesterol have higher risk of getting Parkinsons disease and women with low levels are at risk of premature births . All of which means that people need to find a middle ground and that some cholesterol is need for health . But not to much !
Article kindly provided by http://answerdotcom.blogspot.com/
http://www.pure-health-nutrition.com Click here to get your own unique version of this article with free reprint rights.
More Articles:
Labels: Health
