A beginner's Guide To Controlling Cholesterol

As anyone who has ever read a nutrient chart knows, liver (as a food) is very high in fat and cholesterol. In fact, your liver is a veritable fat and cholesterol factory that collects fat fragments from your blood and uses them to make cholesterol and new fats that your body can use to build tissue and perform other physiological functions.

The next few sections explain exactly how lipoproteins are made.

When the chylomicron hits the liver, it picks up fat particles and mutates into the largest kind of lipoprotein, a fluffy particle called a very low density lipoprotein (VLDL).

Then your liver sends the VLDL out into the wide world — your body. As the VLDL travels far and wide, it drops globs of fat, picks up globs of cholesterol, and changes into a slightly smaller, heavier particle called an intermediate low-density lipoprotein (IDL), and then a slightly smaller, heavier low density lipoprotein (LDL).

The last step in the transformation of the baby lipoprotein (the chylomicron) occurs when an LDL has dropped so much fat and cholesterol into body tissue that it’s mostly protein. Now, you’re looking at a high density lipoprotein (HDL).

The primary proteins in VLDLs, IDLs, and LDLs belong to a class of apolipoproteins called apoB. The primary proteins in HDLs belong to a class of apolipoproteins called apoA. Other less prominent apolipoproteins found in lipoproteins are apoC and apoE.

You may have heard about a blood test for apoA; this test is interesting because a high level of apoA indicates a high level of protective HDLs (the “good” particles that haul cholesterol out of your body).