Cholesterol

[adcooper]

I quit eating junk food and switched to whole wheat. No luck. My blood levels are just getting worse. Okay...because I am married to a vegetarian, I probably DO use too much dairy to try and compensate. My orders are careful diet and exercise, then retest in 3 months. Can you hear me whining? But I'll do it. I really don't want to take statins, so I'll try. Feel free to share your success stories! I could use the pep talk!

[Goalie]

Now don't laugh, but oatmeal and cheerios did it for hubby.

[adcooper]

I can DO that! (Oatmeal cookies?)

[Goalie]

yes he even had a couple of oatmeal cookies for a treat. lol
Seriously ann, he changed his diet to include oatmel and cheerios for alternative breakfast choices. After 6 weeks he was tested again and did not need to take any meds for it at all. That was 4 years ago now and he is still doing good. He does slide every now and then and have eggs. He loves his milk too.

[coyote]

Depending of which aspects of your cholesterol are high, you may have to forego the "cookie" part in that:). Lipids and Triglycerides (the bad cholesterol) are really impacted by sugar. Also sugar lowers the "good" cholesterol. Oatmeal is great. Oat bran is much, much better. Soluable fiber lowers cholesterol. That would be something like Metamucil (sp). There is a lot of information on the internet about it. Others will know a lot more than I. I only know this because my husband did some research because his mother, aunts and uncles tend to have very high cholesterol. He helped his mother lower hers significantly with these simple things. My husband is a dairy eating vegetarian and his cholesterol is very low, but he probably doesn't eat what I would call much. I am a dairy-aholic.

Goalie, it is very interesting that your husband's cholesterol levels change so much. That is great!

[Goalie]

Thanks coyote, he is very serious on his diet. He hates to take pills, any kind of pill so he works very hard at being healthy.

[Kat]

My mom - who eats sprouted wheat bread, and Veggie burgers - has high Cholesterol, as does my sister. I never thought much about it, until I went in for a checkup, and my bloodwotrk came back with high cholesterol levels - 2-something.

I have a wonderful Dr though who like to try vitamins first, so she put me on a high dose of Niacin. I haven't gone back to get retested, but when I do, I'll let you know if the Niacin is helping.

[adcooper]

Kat, my husband takes niacin, too. I always make fun of him because he turns beet red after taking them.
Coyote, I quickly get dizzy trying to track the various glycerides and lipids etc. My Triglycerides are good, I am told. Whatever that means! Ditto my "good" cholesterol. All the metabolic stuff is dandy, too. So apparently it's just that other bad stuff I must watch. My hubby happily takes the meds to lower his cholesterol, but I don't want to do it. When he saw my numbers, it did get his attention, though. (Total--238; LDL--173) He promised to stop making me nachos and BLTs all the time! Waaahhhh!

[alisonph]

Ann,

I've always wondered about the health of WHAT we are eating. Especially meat. If you eat unhealthy meat, the free radicals are sky high, making the free radicals in your body even higher. Free radicals are oxidizers, thus your body is fighting the actual food you just ate, trying to squeeze out some nutrition.

For example, pelletized poultry litter has, in the past, been fed to feed lot beef cows. This is the beef you find in the grocery store, McDonald's, Outback Steakhouse, etc. It's commercial beef. The poultry litter is very, very high in protein, which is the building block of muscle. Meat is muscle. So, the cow is eating manure to gain muscle. Is that muscle healthy?

Chicken is much the same. Poultry houses have so much ammonia in them that without special additives to the bedding, and lots of fans, the chickens go blind in a matter of days. So, an additive is put in the bedding to bind the ammonia and the chicks don't go blind. However, if you've ever seen anyone coming or going from a large, commercial poultry house, they have a RESPIRATOR on. The air is of such poor quality, the humans wear a respirator. What do think the health of the meat is when it's grown in an environment like that? Sure, it might be low fat and low calorie, but is it HEALTHY? Recently, I toured a processing facility for commercial poultry. They spoke of packaging FRESH chicken that has a shelf life of 180 days! Hmmm, it's low fat, low cholesterol, low calorie and your doctor will prescribe you chicken in your diet, but is it HEALTHY?

See what goes into your body. See it grazing in the field. See it eating whay you expect it to eat. If your meat (and this goes for eggs and dairy) is healthy, you will be healthy.

I know this won't happen in 3 months, but it's something to think about when someone prescribes dietary changes.

Good luck:)

[adcooper]

Alison, I'm WITH you on this! Completely. In fact, I've been trying to eat local food, primarily, and I have been boycotting some of the major chicken producers for years. I agree with everything you say. Some of our favorite restaurants in town are buying locally grown food for their menus. I love that. I have moved more and more toward whole food, local, organic, free range, etc... but it brings some challenges. (Availability, price, extra effort, and such.) In fact, I feel something of a "leading" about this. ("Leading" is Quaker talk for a divine nudge!)

[Luci]

DH does the Niacin thing too, but he takes the kind that doesn't make you flush. The doc has been frustrated trying to lower his and this has helped a little.

I think I'll have a salad for dinner after reading about what is in meat --or some oatmeal cookies, those sound so good! Stop that.

[adcooper]

Oh, heck. It's genetic. I emailed my brother and he says he's had high cholesterol for years, in spite of being absurdly fit, running up mountains (he lives in Bavaria), playing basketball, and drinking red wine. If he can't control it with exercise, I'm doomed. He looks fit enough for 50, don't you think?

(PS, Luci, what kind of Niacin doesn't make you flush?! I could take that and Bruce would never know, and then I could keep teasing him about blushing! )

[alisonph]

At some point, the stress of worrying about cholesterol surpasses the danger of the cholesterol itself.

[Luci]

I don't think I've ever seen a photo of him before. That is one handsome man! Is that cute cute boy your nephew?

Michael buys Schiff's "Flush Free" Niacin at 500 mgs. It's about $16.00 for 133 tablets. I'm sure there are plenty of others on the market. They should say flush free on the lable or time release.

[Kat]

You can also take the Niacin with a regular strength Aspirin, which will help prevent the flushing - and be good for your heart as well.