What is Cholesterol?

“…….It is cholesterol, means fat”

I happened to over hear such a conversation, when I was in the gym. I think many people think that way. ‘Cholesterol is just fat’. Is that really? It is fat like but it is not fat. The last two letters ‘ol’ gives us a clue about what it is.

Cholesterol is actually a waxy alcohol (means hydroxyl (a Hydrogen and Oxygen friendship) group bound to a carbon atom and not alcoholic beverage). In Greek, Chole means ‘Bile’ and Stereos means ‘solid’ and since it is an alcohol the ‘ol’. Thus

Chole + Stereos + Alcohol = Cholesterol

It is made by our liver (and not absorbed from fatty food, though it can absorb some) and present in every cell of our body and is used by the body to build healthy cells, apart from some other functions (like make some hormones and Vitamin D etc).

Then why is it considered as bad? What is this Bad guy (LDL) and good guy (HDL) in cholesterol? Are they really cholesterol?

11.15 pm doesn’t look like a healthy time to talk about cholesterol… let’s look into it later tmrw…