2 soft drinks can raise cholesterol to dangerous levels

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While exercise is the holy grail of health because it can help prevent cholesterol from clogging your arteries, you may be unintentionally damaging your health with what you drink. Sipping on a certain sugary drink could be doing you harm.

Any sugary drink, such as fruit juice, can be bad for your health. Sugar-sweetened beverages are associated with adverse changes in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol.

High-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol helps protect the heart and blood vessels from disease.

Having too low an HDL level can be harmful because high-density lipoprotein has three functions:

• It is anti-inflammatory
• It has antioxidant effects
• It removes excess cholesterol from the blood vessels and returns it to the liver.

When cholesterol is transported to the liver, it is broken down and excreted from the body.

Increased sugar intake can contribute to dyslipidemia.

What is dyslipidemia?

“Dyslipidemia is an imbalance of lipids such as cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, triglycerides, and high-density lipoprotein (HDL).”

Low-density lipoproteins are considered the “bad” type of cholesterol because they are the ones that build up along the walls of arteries, narrowing blood flow.

When cholesterol builds up on the walls of arteries, it forms what’s called plaque. If the plaque ruptures a blood vessel, a clot forms, which can, for example, block blood flow to the heart.

If blood flow to the heart is blocked and the muscle doesn’t get enough oxygen, it starts to die, and a heart attack occurs. According to a nutrition expert, another drink that can raise cholesterol levels is pressed coffee.

“Pressed coffee is made by mixing ground coffee beans with boiled water in a French press. There is no filter for the coffee, so some of the coffee grounds, which contain a substance called diterpenes, can get into the drink.”