Preview

Cholesterol, the good, the bad and the ugly!

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1616 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Cholesterol, the good, the bad and the ugly!
Cholesterol, the good, the bad and the ugly! Lipids are a forgotten and unreferenced building block in the human body. Why is it when we talk about healthy lifestyles, that lipid’s and the major functions it provides for us is not mentioned. Sure some of its lower members are recounted daily like proteins and fats, but there is so much more to learn and understand. In the next developing paragraphs I will be discussing and explaining the functionality of lipids, fats, cholesterol, and how it all comes together to provide the body with the energy and strength to perform its daily functions. First, we must learn what lipids are. Lipids are an organic compound in the body that make up about 18-25% of body mass in a lean built adult. Lipids have similar qualities like carbohydrates, Tortora, G. & Derrickson, B. (2014) explain that “like carbohydrates, lipids contain carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Unlike carbohydrates, they do not have a 2:1 ratio of hydrogen to oxygen.” (pg. 45) With the slight differences than carbohydrates this makes lipids usually smaller, and so fewer polar covalent bonds. Making most lipids unsolvable in solvents like water or plasma, they are called hydrophobic. Tortora & Derrickson (2014) manage to articulate that
Because they are hydrophobic, only the smallest lipids (some fatty acids) can dissolve in watery blood plasma. To become more soluble in blood plasma, other lipid molecules join with hydrophilic protein molecules. The resulting lipid–protein complexes are termed lipoproteins. Lipoproteins are soluble because the proteins are on the outside and the lipids are on the inside. (pg.45)
The result of this makes it possible for lipids to cross plasma membranes as the now soluble lipoprotein; this is also how they transport vitamins. In all accounts though, lipids hold the most important function and that is the storage of energy. Energy is obtained by the oxidization of the lipids in the body. Where are the lipids coming from though, how

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Ap Biology Unit 1 Summary

    • 2660 Words
    • 11 Pages

    * Lipids are used for storing energy, building membranes and other cell parts, and used as chemical signaling molecules…

    • 2660 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sc121 Unit 2 Assignment

    • 985 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Therefore, the plasma membrane is said to be selectively permeable. So, this is where Cholesterol comes in. What is Cholesterol? Cholesterol is a waxy, fat-like substance made in the liver and other cells. It’s also found in certain foods, such as dairy products, eggs, and meat. There are two different types of Cholesterol. There is LDL and…

    • 985 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Biochemistry GRT1   Lipids are molecules that are not soluble in water but can be dissolved in non-polar substances such as alcohol or chloroform (Mandal, n.d.). Lipid molecules are stored in adipose, or fat tissue, and can be broken down in our bodies to form an energy called ATP. To do so, the lipid molecule is dissected into its base pieces, glycerol and fatty acids. Each of the fatty acids is then broken down into two-carbon pieces and acetyl CoA is formed from each carbon piece.…

    • 476 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    water soluble and not lipid soluble, it remains in the vacuole when the cells are healthy. If the…

    • 476 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lipids-One of a diverse group of organic substances all of which are relatively insoluble in water, but soluble in alcohol, ether, chloroform, or other fat solvents. are organic compounds of fatty acids, which are insoluble in water and soluble in organic solvents.…

    • 1050 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lipids release large amounts of energy when broken down. 12.. You look at the label on a container of shortening and see “hydrogenated vegetable oil.” This means that during processing the number of carbon–carbon double bonds in the oil was decreased. What is the result of decreasing the number of double bonds? a. The oil now has a lower melting point. b. The oil is now a solid at room temperature. c. There are more “kinks” in the fatty acid chains. d. The oil is now a derivative carbohydrate. e. The fatty acid is now a triglyceride. 13. The portion of a phospholipid that contains the phosphorous group has one or more electric charges. That makes this region of the molecule a. hydrophobic. b. hydrophilic. c. nonpolar. d. unsaturated. e. saturated. 14. Molecule X is soluble in ether, an organic solvent, but it is not very soluble in water. Based on this information, what class of biological macromolecules does molecule X belong to? a. Nucleic acids b. Carbohydrates c. Proteins d. Enzymes e. Lipids 15. In a biological membrane, the phospholipids are arranged with the fatty acid chains facing the interior of the membrane. As a result, the interior of the membrane is: a. hydrophobic. b. hydrophilic. c. charged. d. polar. e. filled with water. 16. The monomers that make up polymeric carbohydrates like starch are called: a. nucleotides. b. trisaccharides. c. monosaccharides. d. nucleosides. e. fatty…

    • 1088 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lipids (also known as fats) are nonpolar, insoluble molecules gained within the body trough digestion of food. Triglycerides, a type of lipid that serve as storage units for energy have 3 fatty acid chain tails made up of carboxylic acid and a fatty carbon chain attached to a glycerol backbone. These molecules can be saturated or unsaturated contingent on the bond types and hydrogen number in the molecule. Anytime a fatty acid is removed from a glyceride molecule, dehydration synthesis occurs and a water molecule is taken away. This helps to break the bonds, also called esterase linkages, within the molecule. These bonds house the energy within the triglyceride. After…

    • 740 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    unit 2 anatomy

    • 529 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Cholesterol is a waxy fat-like substance that’s found in all cells of the body. Your body needs some cholesterol to make hormones, vitamin D and substances that help you digest foods. Your body makes all the cholesterol it needs, however it is also found in some of the foods you eat. It travels through your bloodstream in small packages called lipoproteins. These packages are made of fat (lipid) on the inside & proteins on the outside. Two kinds of lipoproteins (LDL) & high density lipoproteins (HDL). Having healthy levels of both types is important.…

    • 529 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Biology Aqa Notes

    • 3967 Words
    • 16 Pages

    Lipids – Membranes, energy supply, thermal insulation, protective layers/padding, electrical insulation in neurones, some hormones…

    • 3967 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the passage “New U.S. Dietary Guidelines Limit Sugar, Rethink Cholesterol” I chose to read about “Your mother was right about fruit and veggie”. Which talks about how the guidelines are on the fruits and vegetables Americans should consume. It had the amount of fruit and vegetables to consume, hidden advantages to eating them, and it talked about grain.…

    • 180 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Texting while driving

    • 380 Words
    • 2 Pages

    12. What are lipids composed of (structure)? Fats and oils; glycerol and 3 fatty acids.…

    • 380 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Phospholipids are important components to the structure of the plasma membrane. It forms a bilayer sheet, one layer of the phospholipids has its hydrophilic head (the phosphate which is attracted to water) pointing inwards so that it interacts with the water in the cell cytoplasm and the other layer of phospholipids has its hydrophilic head pointing outwards to interact with the water surrounding all cells. The hydrophobic tail (the fatty acid end of the phospholipid which orients itself away from water and towards fat) of both the phospholipid layers points into the centre of the membrane, protected from the water.…

    • 1094 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Skinny Fat Cells

    • 200 Words
    • 1 Page

    In the article, "Can Skinny Fat Beat Obesity", discusses a type of adipose tissue, called beige fat cells, that can help solve prevention in obesity, and beige fat as an evolutionary conserved mechanism for adaptive thermogenesis. In this situation, I believe there are many ways a person can be involve with obesity and it can also be involve with being skinny. There is one way or another, a person can have obesity if they are not eating or taking care of their body right. In the text, it explains in a deeper condition of being lipids, it explained about lipids being in a diverse group of different chemical compounds. They share one main characteristic and that is that they do not dissolve in water. And explained fatty…

    • 200 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Eatwell Plate Analysis

    • 1170 Words
    • 5 Pages

    95% of the dietary fat consumed can be found in the form of triacylglycerol and primarily stored as this form within the adipose tissue (Webb, 2012). The structure of triacylglycerol comprise of three fatty acid molecules linked to a three carbon glycerol molecule (refer to figure 2). The biological and physical properties of a triacylglycerol can differ upon the types of fatty acids it comprises of (Mann & Truswell,…

    • 1170 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    [36] Kates, M. (1972). Techniques of Lipidology: Isolation, Analysis and Identification of Lipids. Pp. 385–…

    • 10016 Words
    • 41 Pages
    Better Essays