Why Is LDL Bad?

Why Is LDL Bad?

The human body is made up of many substances and chemical compounds. They all coexist with each other to help the body function normally. Science has been able to shed light about most of their functions but some questions still remain. One of them is why LDL or low density lipoprotein is bad for our health.

Many are mystified why LDL exists in the body despite its reputation of causing nasty illnesses like strokes and heart attacks. In fact a lot of stuff that makes up the body is also culprit to many diseases and scientists are always working to find out why and how it happens.

For starters, all compounds and substances in the body are essential to our survival. Remove one of them and we risk getting sick. The same would happen should we decide to add one that doesn’t belong to a very close knit family. It’s why LDL is in there along with other lipoproteins.

LDL comes in two sizes. There’s the big version and there’s the smaller ones. In a perfect world, big LDL is ideal for transporting cholesterol as they don’t get lodged in the arterial walls thus lessening the chance of plaque build-up which we all know is the precursor to strokes and heart attacks. However, the sad reality is most of us having small sized LDLs running around in our blood stream.

Why is this bad? Since smaller LDLs mean smaller loads of cholesterol, the body tends to produce more of them. Their size and volume often causes plaque build-up especially when they have become oxidized. It’s why we need to have more anti-oxidants in our diet to prevent build-ups in our delicate arteries. This is the main reason why LDLs get their ‘bad cholesterol, reputation. We need to remember that with proper care and a healthy lifestyle, we can control LDLs.