Sugar substance cuts down 'good' HDL cholesterol from body

A new research has discovered that "good" High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol gets converted into "bad" cholesterol by a sugar-derived substance known as methylglyoxal - MG.

The study conducted by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) showed that MG was found to damage "good" HDL cholesterol, which removed excess levels of bad cholesterol from the body.

Lead researcher Dr Naila Rabbani, of the Warwick Medical School, says that MG damage to HDL was a new and likely important cause of low and dysfunctional HDL, and could count for up to a 10percent risk of heart disease.

Rabbani said that by understanding how MG damaged HDL they could now focus on developing drugs that reduced the concentration of MG in the blood, but it would not only be drugs that could help.

HDL damaged by MG is rapidly cleared from the blood, reducing its HDL content, or remains in plasma having lost its beneficial function.

Rabbani said that they called abnormally high levels of MG "dicarbonyl stress" and this occurred in some diseases particularly diabetes, kidney dialysis, heart disease and obesity.

The study is published in Nutrition and Diabetes.