A study in mice states that the brain partly regulates the amount of cholesterol circulating in the bloodstream.

These findings also question the assumptions that the levels are only controlled by cholesterol production in the liver and what we eat.

The study stated that for cholesterol travelling round the body, hunger hormone in the brain acts as the remote control.

A heart attack can happen by too much cholesterol as it causes hardened fatty arteries.

Higher levels of blood-circulating cholesterol was caused by increased levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin in mice, this was stated by the research carried out by a US team at the University of Cincinnati. Due to the brain prompting the liver to store less cholesterol, levels in the blood rise.

It was also stated that in mice if this receptor was blocked, it also increased levels of cholesterol in the blood.

Study leader Professor Matthias Tschoep said, "Our study shows for the first time that cholesterol is also under direct 'remote control' by specific neurocircuitry in the central nervous system."