About 8 years ago I used to suffer from a chronic illness. I may share the details about that illness one day, but my point in mentioning this, is that I used to have to get my blood tested regularly due to a medication I was on.
All the while, cholesterol was one thing that happened to be included on the test but not a purpose of the test itself. Meaning it wasn’t relevant to the medication or any of the problems that can be caused as a result of it. One time, by chance, I had an opportunity to look at my test results and discovered my cholesterol was printed out in bold as being abnormal. I also had my past results handy and it was the same on the tests preceding. When I asked my doctor about this, his reply was “Yea, it’s kinda high”. Well, gee, thanks for the heads up. It never occurred to him to point this out to me?
Keep in mind he was a “specialist” and this was not his “area” so he really wouldn’t, or couldn’t, go into details, or answer some of the questions I had, like why is it high, and what should I do about it. For that he told me to see my general practitioner. At the time, I had no knowledge about cholesterol and what the numbers meant so I left there wondering what exactly was the significance of this.
I knew there was a lot of heart disease on my mother’s side of the family so I had some concerns. I went to see a “general practitioner” who wanted to put me on another medication. After discussing the situation she really drove home how important it was for me to get my cholesterol down. I asked about side effects, mainly because I was already on a medication that could have an effect on my liver. Sure enough, cholesterol lowering medication also can have an effect the liver.
My health in general was very poor at the time and I was starting to realize how messed up I really was. I was also about 70 lbs overweight, and I was only 29 years old.
I expressed in frustration how I didn’t really want to be put on another medication. I did this not expecting to be offered an alternative. Nonetheless, she mentioned I could try lowering it by changing my diet, but this isn’t something that is often successful. (It is actually 90% effective. More effective than any drug when the patient is disciplined about their lifestyle change. What I believe she meant to say is that her patients are not often disciplined) She then gave me some very dark and over exposed photocopied sheets of paper that detailed some information on diet and cholesterol and mentioned we should have another blood test in 30 days.
That day I became determined to correct this and focus on my health in general. I first researched cholesterol itself. I learned the different parts, LDL, HDL, Triglycerides. What each is responsible for, how it worked, why its bad (its not bad, its the oxidation of cholesterol that’s bad), where it comes from, and what to avoid. When it came to a cholesterol lowering diet, it seemed what was on these photocopied sheets of paper, which was thought to be standard guidelines, didnt always match what I found.
Most importantly, these sheet of papers didnt include anything about trans-fats. (at least not at that time) I learned what partially hydrogenated oils were. I learned how lethal this stuff is; so lethal that there was some consideration in Denmark to make it illegal at the time. It’s virtually a poison that screws you twice. It lowers your HDL, which you want as high as possible, and increases your LDL, which you want lowered.
Eight years ago, trans-fat was virtually unheard of compared to today. At that time you could find some information about it on the internet but not many people knew what it was. Yet, this crap was in almost every box I picked up in the form of partially hydrogenated oils. And at that time you had no way of knowing how much trans-fat. The tips you were given on the internet were to guess how much trans-fat based on the order of ingredients. Well, screw that. If it had partially hydrogenated oils, i stayed away from it.
What made my blood boil though, were food boxes marked “cholesterol-free” with the third or fourth ingredient being partially hydrogenated oils. Think of the poor schlub who wants to do something better for himself and lower his cholesterol by choosing Nabisco Triscuits because of the deceptive advertising.
Since then, much progress has been made on this front. First the FDA finally passed a law to list the trans-fats grams within the nutritional information of a food product. Then something extremely ironic happened. All the products which I noticed had partially hydrogenated oils on their boxes before, now had them removed from their ingredient list. Rather than disclose it, they got rid of it. Then they used this as a marketing twist to advertise themselves as being on the “No Trans-fats” bandwagon. As if they really fucking cared what we ate.
Keep in mind, some of these products, even while advertising “No Trans-fats” still had partially hydrogenated oils in their ingredients. If you’re confused by this, well it’s because they’re legally allowed to list zero trans-fats when there is 0.5g or less in a serving. Often their servings are a fraction of what most people consider a reasonable serving so something listed as zero trans-fats could have up to 1.5g if the serving size is one third of what you think it should be. i.e. six potato chips.
Also, you should know that the attraction to these oils by the food companies, and restaurants, is simply that they are cheaper and have a longer shelf life. There’s very little reason to use them over other oils other than that. The product results of using partially hydrogenated oils can all be replicated with other healthier oils. Poof of this is the fact they were mostly removed quietly without many even people knowing they were there in the first place.
New York followed suit by banning the use of partially hydrogenated oils in restaurants. The restaurant companies fought hard against this of course. They fought this in the name of customer’s choice. This was the biggest hypocrisy and left me wondering where my choice was. Yet, you’d be surprised how many people I discussed this with that were suckered into falling for this and that New York had no business being “the food police”.
And this is also somewhat related to the point of my post.
When it comes to your health and what you consume, you alone need to take responsibility for yourself first. I speak about trans-fats only as an example here. This stuff was in processed food for quite some time while cardiovascular disease became the #1 killer. It was even sold as a healthy alternative to butter – even after there was some evidence showing otherwise. So do not blindly put your trust in marketing and consume foods which are simply sold in a package that’s marked healthy. Don’t trust the FDA to make decisions for you. Just because the FDA says its safe and its being sold in food, doesnt mean you can safely consume it.
Furthermore, understand any health conditions you might have and challenge your doctor by doing your own research and asking the necessary questions. All too often I’ve been the recipient of healthcare that followed some sort of flow chart of symptoms, problems, and then medications. If your doctor takes a holistic approach and looks at the full picture then you are quite lucky to have him or her.
With that said, start looking at the products you consume and identify the ones which have high fructose corn syrup for example. If you’re an endurance athlete you may be surprised by that gel or sports drink. From there, just make sure you have enough information to make your own choice.
Oh yeah,… my HDL is 75 and LDL is 113 now.
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