Cholesterol is getting a bad press these days and so a lot of women are worrying about their levels. Although many of us think it can increase our risk of heart disease and even death not many of us know that you’d have a hard job living without it. This is because cholesterol does have a friendly side which plays a vital part in keeping us healthy – for starters it helps to make vitamin D which is essential for healthy bones, especially around the menopause when our risk of osteoporosis increases.