Lower CholesterolHow does cholesterol cause heart disease?
Here’s a question I was recently asked:
How does high cholesterol affect your cardiovascular system?
Let me see if I can explain and keep the process easy to understand!
Cholesterol does not necessarily need to be elevated for this process to take place.
First the endothelium (thin inner lining of your blood vessels) becomes damaged and inflamed. This damage can be caused by a variety of factors, such as high blood pressure, high stress level, poor diet, toxic chemicals and metals, tobacco smoke, etc.
What is the endothelium?
The thin layer of cells lining the inside of your blood vessels. When it’s healthy, it helps regulate blood flow and keeps the vessel wall smooth. When it’s damaged and inflamed, it becomes the starting point for plaque buildup.
So, your inflamed endothelium becomes susceptible to attracting fatty particles like cholesterol. The cholesterol particles work their way into the lining. These deposits of cholesterol can then be damaged by free radicals to form oxidized LDL cholesterol.
The immune system responds to the inflamed site by secreting a substance to make the endothelium sticky. The process leads to the formation of macrophages whose goal is to “seek and destroy” foreign objects. However, the oxidized LDL is toxic to macrophages, causing macrophages to be immobilized and unable to return to the blood stream.
The process continues to draw white cells to the area, where they too are immobilized by oxidized LDL, leading to the formation of a “fatty streak” on the artery wall.
Eight steps to lower your cholesterol
A number of steps now take place involving C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, white blood cells, elastin, and collagen that eventually form a tough, fibrous cap over the fatty streak. Under the fibrous cap, dead cells accumulate and decay. You now have the development of a dangerous plaque within your artery walls. Plaque can continue to grow and instigate the development of additional plaque within the arteries, leading to the narrowing of your blood vessels, reduced blood flow, heart attacks, and more.
FYI: cholesterol does not necessarily need to be elevated for the above steps to take place. It’s becoming more clear that knowing your LDL and HDL particle size gives you a better overview of your heart health than typical cholesterol levels alone. Particle size can be determined with lab work, such as a Lipoprotein Particle Profile.
All the best,
Lisa Nelson, RD
Recommended resource
Where I send people for supplements
Food first, always. When a supplement is worth considering, the front of the bottle is marketing and the supplement facts panel is the actual content. Two bottles at the same price can differ by half in what they deliver.
My dispensary carries practitioner-grade products, most of which aren’t sold direct to consumers, with the reasoning behind each one.
I may earn a commission on dispensary orders.