In the previous post, we explained how cholesterol is an essential building block for every living cell in your body. Today, we look at cholesterol’s essential role as part of the body’s healing processes... especially those resulting from chronic inflammation, which is the main culprit behind heart disease and many other diseases.

Inflammation is your body’s natural response to invaders it sees as threats. When you get a cut for instance, the process of inflammation is what follows so that your body can heal itself.

During inflammation the following happens:

• Blood vessels constrict to stop bleeding
• Blood becomes thicker and starts to clot
• The immune system sends cells and chemicals to fight viruses, bacteria and other ‘invaders’ that could cause infection
• Cells multiply to repair the damage

Ultimately, the cut is healed and a protective scar forms over the area.

The same process happens inside a damaged artery, except that the ‘scar’ is known as plaque.

However, inside a damaged artery the process of inflammation is bit more tricky... The plaque and the thickening of blood along with constricting blood vessels (that normally occur during the inflammatory process), can actually increase your risk of high blood pressure and heart attacks...

Herein lays the important link between cholesterol and inflammation.

Only now does cholesterol come into the picture, so that it can do what it is designed to do and replace damaged cells. Remember that no cell can form without it.

When a cell is damaged, your liver will start to make more cholesterol and release it into your bloodstream. This biological process happens so that your body can produce new, healthy cells... and heal itself!

If damage occurs in your body on a regular basis, then you are in danger of suffering from chronic inflammation. This leads to elevated cholesterol levels, which quickly increases as your body tries to keep the inflammation under control.

Because of this natural process, it makes much more sense to test for C-reactive protein (CRP), as an indicator of heart disease risk than cholesterol tests, as CRP level is used as a marker of inflammation in your arteries. A CRP level under 1mgs per litre of blood means you have a low risk of cardiovascular disease, 1-3mgs means your risk is intermediate and more than 3mgs is high risk. Your CPR level can be determined through a simple blood test.

So, in fact, cholesterol really isn’t the villain it is made out to be. Instead, it is the underlying damage to your arteries caused by inflammation...

In light of this, the medical mainstream should perhaps start pushing patients at risk of heart disease to go for regular CRP blood tests instead of cholesterol blood tests...

Until next time

The Cholesterol Truth

Sources:

Annals of Internal Medicine (1998;128(6):478-487) The Journal of the American Medical Association (1997;278:313- 321)

Annals of Internal Medicine October 3, 2006; 145(7): 520-530

IMS Heallth. IMS National Prescription Audit Plus July 2007

BusinessWeek.com, "Do Cholesterol Drugs Do Any Good?" January 17, 2008 (accessed June 10, 2008)