Looks like I picked the wrong day to stop smoking!
Posted on 07/01/2005 9:21:29 PM PDT by neverdem
Over the last 40 years, heart specialists have learned a lot about the way cholesterol behaves in the body, much to the benefit of Americans destined to suffer heart attacks or strokes - at least half of the population.
As knowledge has grown, the goals of treatment have changed, with lifesaving effects. And now they are changing again.
At first, pioneers bent on preventing cardiovascular disease focused only on a person's total blood cholesterol level. A level of 240 milligrams per deciliter of blood serum was considered "normal" just a few decades ago. Then research, like the Framingham Heart Study in Massachusetts, showed that at least half of heart attack victims had cholesterol levels of 240 or below.
Today, the goal for total cholesterol is 200 or less, preferably 180 if you want to remain heart-healthy. Cholesterol is not soluble in water and thus requires substances called lipoproteins to carry it in blood.
As the chemistry and physiology of cholesterol became better understood through the work of scientists like Dr. Michael S. Brown and Dr. Joseph L. Goldstein, who shared a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1985, attention shifted to low density lipoprotein cholesterol, or L.D.L., the so-called bad cholesterol. When L.D.L. is oxidized, it becomes glued to the lining of arteries that feed the heart, brain and tissues throughout the body, setting the stage for a heart attack, stroke or peripheral vascular disease.
A Sliding Scale of Safety
Based on current recommendations, people otherwise at low risk for heart disease should have an L.D.L. level of less than 130. For someone known to be at high risk or who already has heart disease, the desirable level of L.D.L. is much lower, well below 100.
The statin drugs have revolutionized the treatment of elevated L.D.L. These drugs are especially effective...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
bttt
The article suggested eating legumes but didn't I just read legumes have adverse effects on male fertility? Indeed I did:
A plant chemical called genistein found in soya (soybeans), tufo and legumes might damage sperm and harm male fertility, according to a study presented at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology meeting.
Just when I get my cholesterol down to 180, they change the marker.
LOL! And the day I quit smoking, I'll get hit by a truck.
ah! so thats why china's population has been declining 10-15% for the last thousand years!
Looks like I picked the wrong day to stop smoking!
I'm a 70 yr. old with all kinds of heart problems. For those of you with high cholesterol try Red Yeast Rice. The pharmaceutical statins make me deathly ill. The Red Yeast
Rice dropped my total from 335 to 166 in a 3 mo. period.
600 mg. twice daily.
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