Cholesterol

Cholesterol Basics [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged Bulletproof coffee / Cholesterol / Eggs / Goals / HDL / LDL / Statins / Triglycerides by

Fat Basics

Fats don’t mix with water.  Some fats are liquid at room temperature (oils), some fats are solid at room temperature.

Because so much of your body is made up of water, fats are very unhappy there.  So your body will take this “head” that likes water, and sticks it on the lipid “tails”.
*Correction: This combination is called a Phospholipid

Then they will form a little ball where all the water-hating tails are inside, and all the water-liking heads are on the outside.  This is called a Lipoprotein.

Cholesterol

LDL = Low-density lipoprotein (“Bad”) HDL = High-density lipoprotein (“Good”)

Density = the amount of stuff you can cram in a limited space
– A lot of stuff in a small space = high density
– A little bit of stuff in a big space = low density

In the lipoproteins, extra proteins are added to help direct it where to go.  HDLs have more proteins to help them stay focused than LDLs, so LDLs are like distracted drivers…

The Egg Controversy (while I avoid a lot of HuffPost articles, and I don’t know much else about this author, I agree with 90% of what he says here – and that’s more than I can say about other information I find out there)

LDLs also have more triglycerides crammed into them.  Triglycerides have 3 water-hating tails instead of one.

What’s the magic number?

You don’t need your cholesterol number to be zero.  You need cholesterols to build cell membranes and hormones, you just don’t want there to be too much of it.

So the LDLs are less directed so they end up crashing into each other and sticking together.  Then if they crash into the artery wall, they may get stuck there and just becomes a place where more stuff can get stuck.  This is how atherosclerosis and blockages happens.  A bunch of cholesterol is stuck to the walls of the arteries.

There is NO magic number!

HDL: > 40 men, > 50 women
LDL: < 100
Trigs: < 150
TC: < 200

The Bottom Line

HDLs and LDLs are the types of packages your body uses to carry fatty acids around your body.

The main hub of all this cholesterol packing and shipping and using is your liver.  Once the liver is done using all the fatty acids it needs, if there’s a bunch extra, it starts packing them away into adipose (or fat) tissue and storing it wherever it can around your body.  And there is NO LIMIT to the size of the fat stores!

The Statin Controversy (this is a great summary – the bottom line being that the people recommending “statins for everyone” stand to benefit greatly in their pocketbook if more people in the world actually started taking (aka buying) statins.

Familial Hypercholesterolemia = genetically inherited high cholesterol

Lifestyle changes (eating healthy foods and an appropriate amount of exercise) can never be bad for you!

Risk Assessment

If you take your coffee the “bulletproof” way, consult your doctor first.

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Music Credits:  “Radio Martini” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Liver Lesson #2: Metabolism [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged athletes / Cholesterol / Diabetes / fat / gallbladder / glucose / intestines / Liver / metabolism / protein / sugar by

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Liver – have one.

Lobule – yep!

A colored sketch of a liver lobule with labeled parts.

Liver makes bile, helps digest fat in the intestines. Gallbladder? Holds bile until your intestines need bile.

3 main energy sources:  Carbohydrates, Fats, Proteins

Intestines absorb them into the blood and send them to the liver.

Basics of Metabolism

Metabolism = change

This type of change happens for 2 reasons:

  1. To make something useful
  2. To make something safe

What’s water got to do with it?

  • Your blood is made of water
  • Liver preforms hydrolysis on carbohydrates (using water to dissolve it into tiny bits of sugar = glucose)

Carbohydrate Metabolism

Glucose is the main form of sugar that your body uses for energy.

Sugars are the easiest to turn into energy so that gets used first.  So low carb diets force the body to go after fats, which are the next easiest.  If you’re eating low fat as well, then the body will burn the fat deposits on the body.  Weight loss!

Fat Metabolism

The liver breaks down the fatty acids to make cholesterol (which is not always bad).  Cholesterol is used in your cells walls to keep them fluid and slippery.  Cholesterol is also used to make bile (think “like dissolves like”).  If there’s any extra fatty acids the liver performs gluconeogenesis (gluco = glucose, neo = new, genesis = creation). It basically creating glucose out of anything that contains Carbon.

This is why fats are bad for Type 2 Diabetics as well as sugar.

Protein Metabolism

Protein is the hardest, but can still provide energy.  Proteins are made up of amino acids.  Amino = Nitrogen, acid = carbon.  The nitrogen is relatively useless, so the liver turns it into urea, that gets sent out and filtered by the kidneys.  The part with the carbon can be turned into glucose (gluconeogenesis again).

One of the intermediate steps of the urea production is ammonia.  There is actually a blood test that can be done to test the ammonia-urea balance (BUN = Blood Urea Nitrogen), and if this is out of balance, it indicates a problem.  This test may indicate that your body is metabolizing your own muscles.  This can also be a sign of starvation or other nutritional imbalance.  You need your muscles, you don’t want to metabolize your muscles.

Your body generally needs fully intact amino acids to build, rebuild, and heal muscles.  Proteins and amino acids have a life span, so your body is constantly rebuilding and replacing with fresh supply.  Athletes require higher protein diets than most because of this process.

Take Away

Glucose and fats aren’t inherently bad, it’s more about the amounts of each that get consumed and float around your body.

Your liver can be very efficient and metabolizing the foods you eat.

Your body gets fat deposits because the body is saturated with enough fatty acids that it needs, so any extra gets packed up and shipped around the body to be stored until later.

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Liver Lesson #1: Digestion [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged bile / Cholesterol / digestion / gallbladder / hepatocyte / intestines / Liver by

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Liver shaped like a triangle – check!

Lobule, hepatocytes, vessels – check!  Hundreds of thousands – got it! 

A colored sketch of a liver lobule with labeled parts.

Bile Basics

Hepatocytes make bile.

It’s colors green due to red blood cell waste (bilirubin).

Bile consists of water, salt, cholesterol, bilirubin.

Bile moves from hepatocytes in liver to the gallbladder.

When you eat fats, the intestines triggers the gallbladder to send bile to help digest fat.

The fats are used in the energy-making process.

Bilirubin makes bile green.  It also makes the skin yellow in jaundice.  Makes poop brown.

For babies, it’s because baby hangs on to extra red blood cells from mommy after birth, and the liver has to learn what to do with all of them after they die (RBC’s only liver 120 days!).  For adults with hepatitis, it’s because their liver is damaged and can’t work as efficiently as it used to.  If your poop is the wrong color, it can indicate there is a major liver problem.

If you are gallbladderless, there is no where for the bile to be stored.  So, it gets send to the intestines continuously.  Also, if you have a meal heavy in fats, the intestines will just dump the food it can’t process faster towards the exit.

High levels of bilirubin in infants can lead to cerebral palsy.  If the liver can’t handle all the bilirubin in a timely manner, the only other way to get it to breakdown is UV light. 

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