Causes of High Cholesterol - What are They?

What are the causes of high cholesterol and how do we prevent these? In health literature you will find these main causes:

• Heredity - you inherit the high cholesterol problem from your parents; that is through your genes.
• From the food you eat - cholesterol is in food derived from animal sources.
• Your liver - all animals that have a liver make cholesterol; so we make about 80% of our cholesterol in our livers.

Note that the problem is not that we get cholesterol from all these sources. The problem is that the amount we have in our blood is abnormally high. What causes that.

Blame it on mommy

The causes of high cholesterol can be evaluated by looking at the sources listed above. Firstly, we inherit the tendency to have high cholesterol via our genetic makeup. We do not know that there is a specific "high cholesterol" gene. However, we do know that high cholesterol is developed, to a large degree, from our lifestyle habits - eating, physical activity, etc - and these are traits that can be passed on to us genetically.

Note that these ways of being or lifestyle habits are behaviors which are completely controllable. As such, we can override the tendency to develop high cholesterol by adopting and practicing "anti-high cholesterol" habits. (I just coined that term. It means practices that do not cause our blood cholesterol levels to elevate abnormally.)

High cholesterol from the diet

Your food is one of the main causes of high cholesterol. For example, if you choose egg rather than fish for breakfast (weight for weight) you could almost double your cholesterol intake. Also, there is a great difference in cholesterol content between the egg yolk and the white.

Foods with high content of saturated fats also contribute to elevated blood cholesterol levels. how the food is prepared - fried versus roasted, for example - determine your cholesterol level.

Cholesterol made by the liver

The liver makes about 80% of the cholesterol in our bodies (on average). Our liver usually makes what we need. Choelsterol is so vital to life that our bodies make it. We get excess cholesterol in our blood stream mainly from the foods we eat. Cases of an over-active liver producing too much cholesterol are extremely rare.

This leads to an important question: In stemming the cause of high cholesterol, why is the primary treatment that of shutting down the cholesterol production in the liver? Since the extra and more controllable factor is in the food we eat, why not lessen our risk for potential liver damage and curb the appetite, choosing foods that lower cholesterol and foods tha have no cholesterol?

You should read my book on How to Win the High Cholesterol War to find out. Here is a hint - in 2004, Lipitor netted $10.9 billion in sales. That is in ONE year! So the causes of high cholesterol might be less life-threatening compared to the associated economic jostling, but you can win this high cholesterol war by yourself.