Health heart cholesterol diabetes

The focus of my recent blogs has been about controlling cholesterol levels to maintain a healthy heart.  As I looked into this, I noticed that a concern about cholesterol in relation to diabetes kept coming up.  I thought this was odd—like many people I tended to think of diabetes as the sugar disease.  But?...  Cholesterol occurs as a fat-like substance in our blood.  However, with just a little bit of study it became apparent that the leading cause of death for people with diabetes is heart attack and stroke.  (Unhealthy cholesterol levels do contribute to these.)  What is the connection?

Diabetes looks like it would make an interesting study of its own.  I might explore it more thoroughly in the future.  But, I’ve been trying to make these blogs on cholesterol and heart health sort of information capsules and that’s what I’d like to do this time also.

Diabetics have trouble metabolizing sugar (especially breaking it down to pass out of the body).  So, they tend to have it in excess, circulating in their blood.  In an effort to balance this, the pancreas makes insulin.  An insulin/sugar bond occurs and the body can store that as fat.  But, since the pancreas is responding to an excess of sugar, it produces an excess of insulin (more than is needed to remove the sugar from the blood).  Now extra insulin is circulating in the blood and when it reaches the liver, the liver is stimulated to up its production of cholesterol, which it releases into circulation.  (By the way, the liver also functions to break down returning cholesterol,)  Now, the body will use some of this cholesterol, but the excess attaches to certain proteins and makes the fatty lipoproteins—LDL (bad) or HDL (good)—which I’ve discussed in other blogs. Ultimately, there is always more LDL than HDL which (even without the concerns of diabetes) can lead to heart disease.

So, excess sugar (especially, refined sugar) as well too much dietary cholesterol, contributes to unhealthy cholesterol levels and can be detrimental to a healthy heart.  To combat the imbalances a good eating plan—something like the AHA food pyramid—is essential.  Proper exercise is also important. (Regular and moderate are good guidelines for this.)  Of course, if you are going to make significant changes to your diet and activity levels, you may want to consult your doctor so you can devise a plan that is tailored for you.  And, certainly, if you have been diagnosed with cholesterol, diabetes or heart problems you will need to follow your physician’s council—especially if medicine has been prescribed.

I’ve presented the relationship between diabetes and unhealthy cholesterol levels as simply as I could.  Since both are results or products of body functions there are other processes involved, but either condition can contribute to the presence of the other.  Minimizing the threat of both is essential to having a healthy heart.