Science Questions

Do we need cholesterol from food?

Do we really need extra cholesterol from food or does our body produce enough already? Decca from USA

Actually cholesterol does a lot of good in our body: it's a component in our hormones such as testosterone and oestrogen, it's also responsible for helping to absorb other fats and it also helps making the lining of cell membranes. If someone completely removes all the cholesterol from their diet, then the body will be able to synthesis more cholesterol. However diet only makes one percentage of the cholesterol we take and there are people who have high cholesterol level where the cholesterol thermostat is impaired, those people have to go on special drugs to reduce their cholesterol levels.

March 2007