Let’s break it down and use an analogy.
Think of your body as a bustling city. The buildings are your cells, and the people are the cholesterol and fats. The people (cholesterol and fats) are necessary for the city to function properly: they work in the buildings (cells), making sure everything runs smoothly.
In this city, there are two kinds of workers: the hardworking ones (HDL or “good” cholesterol and unsaturated fats) and the lazy ones (LDL or “bad” cholesterol and saturated/trans fats). The hardworking ones keep the city tidy and efficient, while the lazy ones tend to slack off and create issues, like traffic jams (blockages in your arteries).
Now, imagine you have two neighboring cities. One city (the food you eat) can send over its people (cholesterol and fats) to the other city (your body). But here’s the thing – the behavior of the people in your city is not going to change based on where the people came from. A hardworking person is going to be hardworking whether they came from the other city or were already in your city, and a lazy person is going to be lazy no matter where they came from.
This is similar to how dietary cholesterol (from the food you eat) and your body’s cholesterol work. Eating foods high in cholesterol doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to have more lazy workers (LDL cholesterol). It’s the type of fats (the kind of workers) in your diet that play a more significant role. Consuming a lot of saturated and trans fats (the lazy workers) is likely to increase the number of lazy workers in your city (raise your LDL cholesterol levels), while consuming unsaturated fats (the hardworking workers) can increase the number of hardworking workers (HDL cholesterol) in your city, keeping everything running smoothly.
Therefore, it’s more about the type of fats you eat rather than the amount of dietary cholesterol when it comes to influencing your blood cholesterol levels.