Why is diet itself not the best way to control cholesterol in your blood?

Answer 1

Depending on the individual, diet itself may bethe best way to control cholesterol in ones blood. Also very important is exercise in order to maintain a healthy weight and muscle strength, in addition to the proper body fat percentage. Whether diet or exercise is the major factor that determines someones blood cholesterol level is determined by that person's genes and by how strict he/she is toward a cholesterol-friendly diet and by how frequently he exercises, the type of exercise he performs, and a combination of the exercise strenuousness and the length of time he exercises per session. In my opinion, it's easy to see why it is probably impossible to determine which factor is the most important one for everyone.

The reason is because the amount of cholesterol one eats is small relative to the amount his/her liver makes. But to reiterate, diet is very important because the amounts and types of fats and oils, the amounts and types of fibers, and the amounts and types of other constituents in the food one eats definitely has an effect on how much and on the types of cholesterol a person's liver makes.

The following calculations demonstrate the difference between ingested cholesterol and that produced endogenously:

Let's say a man of average weight has a total cholesterol concentration of 200 mg cholesterol/100 mL of blood (100 mL = 1.00 dL), which is the maximum total cholesterol level most doctors say one should have.

The average man has approximately 5 L of blood, and 5 L = 5,000 mL = 50 dL, therefore the total amount of cholesterol in the dude's blood is 200 mg/dL x 50 dL = 10,000 mg = 10 grams of total cholesterol.

Pound for pound, eggs are one of the foods with the most cholesterol (but not nearly as much as beef liver and especially chicken liver). One typical large egg contains 212 mg of cholesterol. So, even if the bloke of average weight with an acceptable cholesterol level consumed three large eggs, he would have ingested about 640 mg of cholesterol. That is only 100 x [640/(10,000 + 640)] = 6.0% of the total amount of cholesterol in his body assuming all of the cholesterol he ate ended up in his blood.

When someone ingests fats, including cholesterol, and/or oils, never does every bit of the fat or oil end up in the person's blood stream. Some of it becomes a constituent of bile, part of it is stored in the adipose tissue, some is metabolized, and another fraction is passed in the feces. Normally, all forms of it are a complex of esterified cholesterol molecules surrounded by phospholipids, unesterified cholesterol molecules, and a single large protein. These "lipoprotein particles" are at least partially broken down during the cooking and digestive processes. The point is that the 6.0% figure calculated in the example is a maximum value. The true value would be smaller, and would depend on the individual and on many other factors. To be honest, I do not possess the expertise to even make an educated guess on how much ingested cholesterol actually ends up in ones blood, nevertheless I hope that I answered your question.