More than 55 years ago, researchers started to monitor 5,000 residents from Framingham, Massachusetts to better understand why some people got heart disease and others did not. The researchers discovered, by following all these people, that there was a connection between the level of cholesterol in the blood and the risk for heart disease. This was groundbreaking news. From that point on, high levels of total cholesterol became a marker for the risk for heart disease and remains so today.
But as science continued to evolve, the researchers discovered that cholesterol came in different forms, HDL and LDL. High levels of the HDL form protected against heart disease but high levels of the LDL form increased risk. That may sound confusing. You want your HDL cholesterol to be high and your LDL cholesterol to be low.
The cholesterol story continues to unfold. Many experts feel our current recommendations for the amount of cholesterol to eat daily are too low. Other experts believe a certain amount of cholesterol can be healthy and we should not reduce our cholesterol so much. Experts in other countries – Canada, Australia, the European Union, United Kingdom, Ireland, Korea, Japan, India and New Zealand – no longer recommend restricting foods with cholesterol because they believe this provides no heart health benefits.
Stayed tune, there is still more to learn on this issue.
