Most people correlate lipoproteins with cholesterol.
This is only true to a certain degree.
A lipoprotein is a protein particle or fat that transports cholesterol throughout your living body.
What most people don't know is there are four different types of lipoproteins: high-density lipoprotein (HDL), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) and chylomicron.
The high-density lipoproteins take cholesterol out of the body while the high-density lipoproteins carry cholesterol into the blood.
Your intestinal cells within the body use triglycerides (fats) and protein to generate chylomicron.
The chylomicron will travel for about 12 hours through your body and lose essentially all of its fat content.
At the end of its journey the chylomicron winds up in your liver as basically protein.
You may or may not know that the liver manufactures cholesterol and fat.
In order to do this, your liver will capture fragments of fatty acid from your blood and make new fatty acids and cholesterol in the process.
The liver performs a balancing act depending on the amount of cholesterol you ingest from the food you consume.
If you consume small amounts of cholesterol in your food then your liver tends to create more cholesterol.
On the other hand, if you consume large amounts of cholesterol then your liver tends to create less cholesterol.
The fatty acids and cholesterol manufactured by your liver is packaged with protein to become very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL).
The VLDL has more density and more protein than the chylomicron.
After formation, the VLDL will travel throughout your bloodstream, pickup cholesterol, lose triglycerides and eventually turn into a low-density lipoprotein (LDL).
Your body cells receive cholesterol from the LDLs.
The body cells in turn will manufacture new cell membranes and make hormones (sterol compounds) as a result.
This is considered a good process.
However, LDLs and VLDLs will pass through the walls of blood vessels.
As a result, cholesterol is carried into the blood vessels and deposited on the inside wall of the vessels.
This deposition of cholesterol causes plaques to be formed that may result in the blockage of arteries and prevention of blood from passing through the artery.
The net result is a possible heart attack or stroke being triggered.
It's a misrepresentation to call VLDLs and LDLs bad cholesterol.
In reality, they are really the vehicles that carry cholesterol into your blood arteries.
LDLs lose cholesterol as they travel throughout the body become basically protein as they lose fat in their journey.
As a result, they turn into high-density lipoproteins (HDLs) and are generally called good cholesterol.
However, HDL is not cholesterol but simply protein with fat particles so compact and dense it cannot pass through the walls of blood vessels.
This is why HDL carries cholesterol out of the body and not into the blood arteries.
The bottom line is that a high level of LDLs will probably clog the inside of blood arteries and lead to a heart attack or stroke.
Conversely, a high level of HDLs will help remove cholesterol from the body and thereby reduce the risk of a heart attack or stroke.