Studies Confirm good Cholesterol (HDL) may not be good for you

Cholesterol is a waxy substance found in every cell of your body and in your blood. It is predominantly produced in the liver and used as building block in the production of vitamin D, hormones, and digestive juice. Cholesterol is mainly classified into two types known as good cholesterol (HDL) and bad cholesterol (LDL).

High density lipoprotein (HDL) protects your body against narrowing of blood vessel and is good for your heart as it carries LDL away from arteries to liver where it is broken down and eliminated from the body whereas low-density lipoprotein (LDL) accumulate in arteries making them narrower and poses higher risk of coronary artery disease, strokes, heart attacks. It’s inculcated in our mind that HDL is a good thing for you and you have to maintain higher levels of it at any cost. But that’s not the case. Excess of everything is bad.

There is a protein called CETP cholesterol ester transfer protein which is involved in transferring HDL cholesterol to certain lipoprotein and its deficiency cause impairment of reverse cholesterol transport

A recent research shows that relatively high level of high density lipoprotein blocks and interferes with the function of this protein and don’t protect heart as much as people think.

There is another study that says high levels of supposedly good cholesterol (HDL) poses the risk of recurrent coronary events such as heart attack or chest pain.

‘’Our study confirms our previous work on a different group of women and suggests that clinicians need to take a closer look at the type of HDL in middle-aged and older women, because higher good cholesterol may not always be as protective in postmenopausal women as we once thought. High total good  cholesterol in postmenopausal women could mask a significant heart disease risk that we still need to understand’

, Said lead author Samar R. El Khoudary.

By measuring ultrasound images of a major artery of a woman body, scientist confirms that postmenopausal women with higher HDL levels had a greater risk of atherosclerosis.