HDL and LDL Cholesterol: What is the Difference?

by Erica Bossert

What happens when you hear the word, “cholesterol”? Do you immediately think to yourself, “that’s the thing that my doctor says I should watch”, or do you think, “Hmm… isn’t that what’s in egg yolks”? You may have even heard that cholesterol is linked to heart disease and that you need to keep it a certain level or you will increase your risk of developing heart disease. The fact of the matter is that cholesterol is in deed correlated to heart disease. However, did you know that not all cholesterol is bad for you? The big difference between the two types of cholesterol that we are going to discuss is that you want your HDL cholesterol to be higher and your LDL to be lower. So HDL = good, LDL = bad.

So the remaining question may be, “why is LDL bad for you and HDL good for you though they are both cholesterol”? To answer your question, LDL stands for “low density lipoprotein”.  In other words, LDL is cholesterol containing an outer covering consisting of a lipid combined with protein. The reason why LDL is considered damaging to your health is that it creates plaques in your arteries, which disrupts the blood flow to the heart, thus increasing your risk of a heart attack or stroke (WebMD). One other thing you may not know about LDL is that it increases with age, no matter what your diet is like. Therefore, as you get older, it is essential that you continue to limit saturated fats and increase the amount of healthy fats, such as omega-3 and the fats found in coconut oil, in your diet as well as exercise regularly.

Now that you know a little more about why LDL is considered “bad cholesterol”, we are going to discuss why HDL is will improve your health. HDL stands for “high density lipoprotein”, meaning it is denser in the middle than LDL. This lipoprotein not only helps to remove LDL from your blood, it also reduces your risk of heart disease with higher levels (WebMD). Here is an analogy to explain more about how LDL and HDL affect you: If you pour leftover grease high in saturated fats down your sink, it can clog the pipes and cause other damages. LDL does the same thing to your arteries; LDL can clog up your arteries and cause many other damages (e.g. heart disease, stroke). However, a pipe-snake or even a running stream of hot water (which I learned from my maintenance guy) can come to the rescue and unclog the pipes, flushing out the grease, and preventing further damages. HDL works just the same in flushing out LDL from your blood to lower your risk of developing the diseases discussed.

Although this is a simple snippet of how cholesterol works, what you hopefully took out of this is that cholesterol is needed, but not all cholesterol works the same. Prevention of heart disease is much less costly than intervention, so including regular exercise and a healthy diet will help to raise your HDL levels and lower your LDL levels. The best preventative medicine for heart-related issues is to take care of your heart now.

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