Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="Bigboote, post: 2852094, member: 7631"] Note: I'm not a doctor, nor an epidemiologist, so this is all from the point of view of a medical consumer, not a practitioner. It's been known for some time (like at least three, probably four decades) that cholesterol in the diet has no effect on cholesterol in the bloodstream. It's widely believed (I can't cite any evidence, so take with a grain of salt) that the myth that cholesterol in food (read: eggs and bacon) is bad was perpetuated by the breakfast cereal industry. Blood cholesterol levels are something to be concerned about, but the situation is complicated. 30 years ago, they just looked at your serum cholesterol level and said it should be below 250 (I think the units are micrograms per liter, but am too lazy to verify). Then a few years later, they bumped it down to 200. My father's cholesterol went from good to bad all at once. Then (this is a story not only about how the "in foods" change, but how medical recommendations change) they started figuring in HDL and LDL numbers. What's referred to as the "good" and "bad" cholesterol. If you're athletic, your HDL, or "good" cholesterol levels are elevated, which elevates your total cholesterol number. So they folded in recommendations for HDL/LDL ratios and HDL/cholesterol levels. My total cholesterol raised red flags, but my HDL levels were high enough that my doctor listened to me when I said I didn't need statins. Then, about five years ago, the NIH introduced a calculator that factored in family history, smoking, cholesterol, HDL, LDL, blah, blah, into a calculator of your (five or ten) year probability of a heart attack and recommended using a (I think) 5% threshold to make a decision about remediating drugs. I'm on them now, but would have been on them for 20 years if I'd acceded to the recommendations back then. Your video reminds me of a Johnny Carson routine from probably the mid-80's. They had just found a carcinogen called EDB in oats or something. Johnny said, "Cholesterol in the eggs, sulfites in the bacon, now EDB in the muffins -- pretty soon the ideal breakfast will be a cigarette and a cup of coffee." [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach