Like most people I know,
I often remember that I read something, but rarely where I read it or how
trustworthy the source was. As I was
doing my homework this week, I had this vague feeling that there was an article
somewhere about how dietary cholesterol didn’t have that much correlation with
blood cholesterol levels. I went
looking. That didn’t work, so I called
in the expert: my kid the librarian, who
can find anything. (I got some tips on how
he searched at the same time to try to get more independent…)
Here’s the deal: the reliable sources say that there is, in
fact, a strong correlation between dietary cholesterol and blood levels. You can check it out here and in the
resources listed here. Different people
react differently to cholesterol in the diet, but there is no easy way to tell
whether an individual is a hyperreactor or a hyporeactor. Bottom line is that, in this case, the
recommendation to keep cholesterol intake under 300 mg per day is a good one.
Fun fact: we make more cholesterol in our own bodies
than most people ingest because it is an essential part of the lenses of our
eyes, our brains, and our cell membranes.