"Cholesterol Crystallization?"

[XTrainer]

Have I just not been paying attention? I don't think I ever recall reading about "cholesterol crystallization" (at least not by that name).

I bring this up because I'm trying to makes sense of a study that popped up on my homepage at work. It just caught my eye, because seeing inflammation discussed in the context of atherosclerosis/CVD isn't something you see all that often in mainstream sources.

Anyway, here's an excerpt from the article, with a link to the (more interesting) study abstract below.

"In a new discovery, Abela and the team - while looking at causes of inflammation during atherosclerosis in mice - found that the once cholesterol crystals form in the arterial wall, they activate a biomarker called NLRP3 that induces inflammation.

"What we have found now, at the cellular level, is that the crystals are an early cause rather than a late consequence of inflammation," Abela said.

The discovery could lead to new treatments for heart disease.

"Since cholesterol crystals form very early in the process of heart disease, with great potential to aggravate atherosclerosis, we can target them early on," Abela said. "We can target new therapies by reducing cholesterol crystal deposits early on or use an inhibitor to block the inflammatory biomarker."

Abela added that the biomarker activated by the crystals could be a better indicator of potential cardiovascular disease than others, such as serum cholesterol, or the amount of cholesterol found in the bloodstream.

"Now we treat atherosclerosis on the systematic level; with this discovery we can also treat it the cellular level," he said."
Cholesterol crystals incite inflammation in coronary arteries | MSU News | Michigan State University

Anyone want to enlighten me ?

Also, here's the actual study:
Elsevier

 

[def1]

this is news to me as well. I did a quick search for scientific articles using my schools database and found only about 9 studies that deal with this and most dealt bile and the gallbladder.

The effect of glucose on the crystallization of cholesterol

It is postulated that atheroma formation is related to cholesterol
crystallization.
The rate of crystallization of cholesterol from an oily in
vitro medium is decreased by the addition of serum lipid extracts and can be used
to measure the cholesterol-stabilizing capacity of serum.
The present study shows that glucose adversely affects this cholesterol-stabilizing capacity.

The cholesterol-stabilizing capacity was measured in a group
of subjects with ischaemic heart disease and matched controls during a glucose
tolerance test. Glucose tolerance as well as cholesterol-stabilizing capacity was impaired in the coronary group.

We postulate that the formation of crystalline cholestero in the arterial intima may not
only account for its retention at this site, but that cholesterol in this form would also initiate and
promote the secondary tissue reactions characteristic ofatherosclerosis.

Wilkens, J., & Krut, L. (1965). The effect of glucose on the crystallization of cholesterol. Journal of Atherosclerosis Research, 5(5), 516-523. doi:10.1016/S0368-1319(65)80024-2

Heres another

Physical factors that trigger cholesterol crystallization
leading to plaque rupture

Triggers of plaque rupture have been elusive. Recently it was
demonstrated that cholestero expands
when transforming from a liquid to a crystal state, disrupting overlying
plaque. This study examined the effect of physical conditions
including saturation, temperature, hydration, pH on cholesterol crystallization.

Vedre, A., Pathak, D. R., Crimp, M., Lum, C., Koochesfahani, M., & Abela, G. S. (2009). Physical factors that trigger cholesterol crystallization leading to plaque rupture. Atherosclerosis, 203(1), 89-96. doi:10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2008.06.027

I read a little bit of another study but it is too long to post. It seems that cholesterol crystallization is formed from a mixture of crystals from free cholesterol and cholesterol oxides. They are usually formed most during later stages of atherosclerosis or as you're study shows possibly a precursor to the disease. It definitely is something I havent heard before and Im still struggling to understand it. This is something interesting I probably will study more up on

 

[XMoker]

Threads like this remind me that the nutritional knowledge gap between me and some of you is freaking humbling.

 

[XTrainer]

^Well, I posted this because I need help, so don't be too humbled

 

[quik77]

so wait is what these studies say basically

1:when you have lipid issues (assuming though they don't actually mention it that they mean via the super dense LDL building up when you don't have enough HDL clearing it out) cholesterol gets deposited on your arterial walls

2: when it gets deposited enough it "crystallizes" e.g. expands and hardens, this depositing may also be from your body trying to repair an issue in the arterial wall to being with, the cholesterol concentration getting too high, and the crystallization process and expansion causing more issues

3:when this happens it releases a SOS to the body saying "we've got a problem! fight it!" which leads to inflammation in an attempt to remedy the situation

4:this specific inflammation marker is a good indicator that you are cruising towards a clot/heart disease/issues form blocked arteries

so the researcher take away is "look another early indicator test of if a person will get heart disease!"

and Mine is "Look more reasons to eat correctly and avoid the issue all together!"

or am I missing something here?

 

[Bry]

Here are a couple of articles that mention it, but they are talking about gallstones.
Lith genes control mucin accumulation, cholesterol... [Hepatology. 2002] - PubMed result
Journal of Clinical Investigation -- Filamentous, helical, and tubular microstructures during cholesterol crystallization from bile. Evidence that cholesterol does not nucleate classic monohydrate plates.

As a matter of fact almost all of the articles I found had to do with bile and gallstones.

Bry

 

[XTrainer]

so wait is what these studies say basically

1:when you have lipid issues (assuming though they don't actually mention it that they mean via the super dense LDL building up when you don't have enough HDL clearing it out) cholesterol gets deposited on your arterial walls

2: when it gets deposited enough it "crystallizes" e.g. expands and hardens, this depositing may also be from your body trying to repair an issue in the arterial wall to being with, the cholesterol concentration getting too high, and the crystallization process and expansion causing more issues

3:when this happens it releases a SOS to the body saying "we've got a problem! fight it!" which leads to inflammation in an attempt to remedy the situation

4:this specific inflammation marker is a good indicator that you are cruising towards a clot/heart disease/issues form blocked arteries

so the researcher take away is "look another early indicator test of if a person will get heart disease!"

and Mine is "Look more reasons to eat correctly and avoid the issue all together!"

or am I missing something here?

So is "crystallization" just a word they're using for plaque formation? I've just never heard that before. But your 1 and 2 do not follow with my understanding of how a plaque actually forms...there has to be damage to the arterial wall to begin with in order for a plaque to form, as I understand it. (Plaques are not just natural depositions/accumulations of fatty substances).

Also, my understanding was that the arterial injury itself triggered inflammation...not "cholesterol crystals," whatever those are.

 

[def1]

So is "crystallization" just a word they're using for plaque formation? I've just never heard that before. But your 1 and 2 do not follow with my understanding of how a plaque actually forms...there has to be damage to the arterial wall to begin with in order for a plaque to form, as I understand it. (Plaques are not just natural depositions/accumulations of fatty substances).

Also, my understanding was that the arterial injury itself triggered inflammation...not "cholesterol crystals," whatever those are.

no it seems crystallization is not the same as plaque formation from my understanding. It seems that there is no concrete theory on how the crystallization occurs but what essentially happens is that when the cholesterol goes from a liquid to a solid state it expands and can tear the plaque cap which causes more inflammation and damage.

 

[quik77]

yeah sorry your right I muddled the cholesterol thing a little I thought the wrong ratio of very dense LDL to HDL might be a factor and smushed it up with the fact that cholesterol is a large part of what your body uses to bandage arterial wall damage.

I can't make heads nor tails of if they even had any way to check or did profiles on the subjects before hand.

So we are at cholesterol is trying to fix the plaques > somehow crystallizes (where I'm assuming its either cause of the dense kind or too high a concentration) when it crystallizes it expands, possibly making blockages worse or causing the plaques to break off and cause more damage floating around, and telling the body at the same time go get inflammation on this spot now.

wish I knew the lipid profiles on these subject + the ratio/makeup of these crystals + health history or the diet they fed the subject mice.. and of course this is in mice...