Comment by Cheryl Strachan

Cholesterol levels are largely driven by the genes you inherit, but your eating habits can affect them as well. For example, more saturated and trans fats cause the liver, in effect, to produce more LDL cholesterol. But does eating more cholesterol cause LDL cholesterol to go up? As I said above, for most people, it doesn’t go up much. But about 25% of the population actually does see a bump in LDL cholesterol when they eat more cholesterol-rich foods. They call these people hyper-responders.