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The great debate goes on; is shrimp bad to eat for people with high cholesterol? Well shrimp is low in fat, but very high in cholesterol. Many people are confused by the fat and cholesterol amounts in shrimp. Shrimp is very low in total fat, yet it has very high cholesterol contents. Some people avoid eating shrimp because of its high cholesterol content. Though, based on studies concerning shrimp and cholesterol levels, avoiding shrimp for this reason does not seem necessary.
There is a positive relation between two types of cholesterol, LDL and HDL this reduces the vulnerability to heart disease. LDL is known as bad cholesterol, because it might advance the manufacture of artery blocking plaques which can cause a heart attack. HDL is called good cholesterol, because it goes back to the liver for reprocessing, this in turn decreases cholesterol levels in the bloodstream.
Cholesterol taken into the body as food has a negative effect only if it gets absorbed into the bloodstream; saturated fat assists in this absorption. Eating foods high in saturated fat increases LDL cholesterol which is a bad thing. Most high cholesterol foods are high in saturated fat, and increase LDL.
Shrimp may have a high level of cholesterol, but they have, basically, no saturated fat. Cholesterol in shrimp is harder to absorb than cholesterol from other high fat foods, it is not clear why this is. At one time, scientists could not distinguish the different sterols, and measured them all as cholesterol. This is the reason that the amount of cholesterol in shrimp and other shellfish is recorded as being very high. Not all sterols are the same.
It has been thought all of this time that shrimp was a bad food for those with high cholesterol when actually the opposite is true. Like eggs you should limit your intake to a few times a week, but unlike eggs the cholesterol is offset by the other nutrients of the shrimp, though there are new studies that are changing minds about eggs as well.
Shrimp was thought of as a bad food for those with high cholesterol, when in actuality the opposite is likely true. Just like with eggs you should limit your intake of shrimp to a few times a week, but unlike eggs the cholesterol is offset by the other nutrients of the shrimp, though there are new studies that are changing minds about eggs as well. |
