We hear more and more doctors talking about inflammation and how it contributes to heart disease. Drs Oz and Roizen explain it this way: “The smooth inner lining of your arteries is pummeled by a variety of things: high blood pressure, cigarettes, excess sugar. When that happens, your body sends lousy LDL cholesterol… to those damaged areas in an attempt to heal the wounds. Your immune cells in the damaged area swallow up the LDL cholesterol and burrow into the inner lining of your arteries. Your body then reacts to the wounds and the cholesterol with a low-grade inflammation…Meanwhile, as part of your homeland security team, your healthy HDL cholesterol works to clear that LDL cholesterol out of the area.” That’s why a low level of LDL and a high level of HDL is considered really good.
“Think of your LDL as a bus carrying loads of hooligans and dropping them off in your arteries to do damage to them, while your HDL serves as a high speed patty wagon that zips through your arteries to get the rogue elements off the streets.” Roizen, M, Oz, Mehmet, YOU Staying Young: The Owner’s Manual for Extending Your Warranty, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007), 57.
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