Cholesterol: HDL and LDL (Nursing)

00:01 Hi. Welcome to our video on cholesterol- lowering medications.

00:06 Now, we call those the statins, and I'll explain why.

00:09 They have a pretty long name, but we'll get to that in just a minute.

00:12 So cholesterol gets a pretty bad reputation, but it's part of every one of our cell membranes.

00:18 We need cholesterol. We need it to make hormones, like estrogen and progesterone or testosterone.

00:26 So, cholesterol does some pretty cool things in your body. Let's look at a few others.

00:30 We also need it to make bile salts. Now that doesn't sound really glamorous, but you need bile salts to break down fats.

00:38 So, so far, we know that cholesterol helps us make hormones, we need it to make bile salts, and it's also used in the skin.

00:46 Kind of helps with evaporation of water and absorption of some water-soluble compounds. So it helps our hormones, it helps us make bile salts to break down fats, and it makes our skin beautiful, and also helps us with absorption.

01:01 So cholesterol is really a necessary and important part of all of our cells.

01:06 Now, where do we get cholesterol? Well, there's 2 main sources.

01:10 We get it in our diet, and we call that exogenous, that's coming from outside of our body.

01:15 Now, if you take an increase of saturated fats, that causes the most significant increase in your serum blood cholesterol.

01:22 Now we've got a picture there for you. It's a fish.

01:25 That is not saturated fat.

01:27 That's what you should try moving your diet towards are more fish, rather than beef and butter and cream and milk.

01:36 Those are all dietary sources of saturated fats, but fish is going to be a healthier source for you. Yeah, I'll keep trying to sell you on that later.

01:45 Now, the second source of cholesterol is made by cells in our own body.

01:49 It's primarily in the liver, and you'll see we have the term there, "endogenous," that's from inside. So where do we get cholesterol? 2 places, from our diet and from the cells in our body, primarily in the liver.

02:02 Okay. So why is HDL considered the "good" cholesterol and LDL considered the "bad" cholesterol? So stop for just a minute and see if you really can think through why one cholesterol is considered good and one is considered bad.

02:21 Okay, let's break down the numbers.

02:23 HDL versus LDL.

02:25 So let's look at LDL first.

02:27 It's about 60%-70% of your total serum cholesterol.

02:31 Now, the role and the job of this LDL is it delivers cholesterol to the tissues.

02:37 Now when you have an elevated level of LDL, meaning it's higher than is healthy, you have an increased risk for atherosclerosis. Okay, that means hardening of the arteries and you have this buildup, and it really puts you at significant risk for cardiovascular events.

02:52 So that's why LDL gets its nickname of the "bad" cholesterol.

02:58 You've got to have some of it, but if you have too much of it, you're really increasing your risk for an adverse, really bad cardiovascular event, like a heart attack or stroke.

03:09 Now HDL, the "good" cholesterol, is about 20%-30%.

03:14 Now it carries cholesterol from the tissues back to the liver.

03:18 That's why we consider it the good one.

03:20 If you have elevated levels of HDL, then you're going to decrease your risk of atherosclerosis.

03:26 So our goal for our patients, and should be for ourselves, is we want to elevate our HDL levels and try to keep our LDL levels at a minimum.

03:35 You need them both, but you need a really healthy balance.