EATING YOUR WAY TO A HEART ATTACK

Eating your way to a heart attack

What most people don't realize is that cholesterol comes from two sources: from food and from our own cells. In fact, we actually make three times more cholesterol (about 1,000-1,200 milligrams per day) than we typically eat. So we don't need to eat cholesterol because the body is perfectly capable of manufacturing enough of this waxy substance on its own. Still, American continue to consume an appreciable amount of cholesterol from dietary sources, which can raise "bad" cholesterol levels and increase our risk of heart disease. The average American ingests approximately 300-400 milligrams of cholesterol every day from animal sources. This amount exceeds the government's cholesterol - lowering dietary recommendation of no more than 200 milligrams a day. It is simple to eat this much cholesterol: seven ounces of liver (providing 762 milligrams of cholesterol) or two egg yolks (424 milligrams) will easily put you over the top.

In the intestine is a reservoir of cholesterol called the cholesterol pool. The amount of cholesterol that enters the pool from bile is up to five times greater than the amount of cholesterol derived from our diet. Where does all that cholesterol floating around in the intestine go? About half of the approximately 2,000 milligrams in the pool is excreted and half is reabsorbed into the intestinal cells, ultimately going back to the liver. If you could block reabsorption of some of the cholesterol in the intestinal pool so that it gets excreted and not returned to the liver, then you would decrease your circulating LDL level. One class of cholesterol - lowering drugs in particular capitalizes on this concept.