Cholesterol, for the uninitiated, is a fatty substance regularly present in the blood, which has several important functions. Firstly, it is a constituent of cell membranes and is essential for their integrity. Then it is essential for the synthesis of various hormones from cortisol to testosterone and estrogen and participates in cellular metabolism.
It is so important that the body, in addition to producing it itself, is willing to obtain it from the foods we eat and in fact 70% of the cholesterol in the blood we generate ourselves and 30% comes from the diet. However, its intake with food and its synthesis in the liver are not independent and in fact generally the synthesis increases when the food intake is reduced and decreases, without interruption, when the food is full of it.
The problem arises when cholesterol levels become too high, mostly as a result of an unbalanced diet, but sometimes due to an inherited genetic variable that causes the body to overproduce it. Always communicating the levels of cholesterol foods can increase its levels as much as it hurts us. On the other hand, other foods can, on the contrary, also help to reduce their levels.
If you have high cholesterol you absolutely must not eat these foods
There are, in fact, foods quite full of cholesterol, such as eggs, lobsters, prawns, squid, oysters, cuttlefish, fish roe (bottarga, caviar and the like). Therefore, we need to pay attention to the composition of the foods we buy, especially saturated fats, which we find especially in foods of animal origin, such as red meats and even more in cured meats and cheeses, but also in fried foods, in many processed foods and in desserts.
For condiments it is always good to prefer vegetable oils, primarily olive oil, which contain mono and polyunsaturated fatty acids, which help to keep cholesterol levels low. As far as margarines are concerned, a significant distinction must be made, that is, only those without the so-called hydrogenated or “trans” fatty acids are healthy, substances that are modeled in various treatment processes to give vegetable oils a solid consistency.
In general, it is always important to have a balanced diet and pay particular attention to avoiding being overweight which, together with obesity, is a factor predisposing to the growth of hypercholesterolemia.