Just for kicks, I took one of those "what is your real age?" tests. Depending on how I fudge the answers, my "real age" is between 5-10 years less than my chronological age. I also learned that my media behavior makes me Gen-X (and nearly Gen-Y) even though my birth year technically makes me a Baby Boomer. One of my buddies even noted that my cell phone is for 20-somethings. But my old Bell telephone ring tone dates me.
My mother, on the other hand, is acting more than her age. Since the double-whammy of losing husband and pets in one year, compounded by not being able to keep up her walking (too much smoke from California's bad summer of fire), she has been feeling poorly. So, like any self-respecting medicare-card holder, she high-tailed it to the doctor.
Seems this young whippersnapper had the unmitigated gall to say that her cholesterol is high enough to warrant medication. Out comes the prescription pad, but bless my mother, the pills' side effects means she stops taking them. Instead, she says, she's loosing a little weight, and starting to walk again.
The cholesterol number. Doctors wield it mightily, as a magic predictor for our lives and deaths. But I want to know if this one-size-fits-all number means anything in the face of our great-grandmother's wisdom.
I jaunt over to the American Heart Association, where I am admonished to eat a heart-healthy diet no matter what my magic number. The "safe" level--used since the 70s--is that I should consume no more than 300 mg of cholesterol a day--in other words, eat an egg, and I'm done for the day. But wait, I'm sensitive to eggs.
So, I dig deeper, to learn that this "safe" level was determined in a single meeting of food scientists back in 1968. Based on the assumption that serum cholesterol levels reflect the amount of dietary cholesterol, they quite arbitrarily guessed that 300mg should be safe.
But there's more bad news: not only is that number a best guess, it's based on a flawed assumption: serum cholesterol reflects the cholesterol you produce yourself, not what cholesterol you consume. Numerous studies have confirmed this, but the myth continues to be promoted, even by the Heart Association.
Which isn't to say that what you eat has no bearing on your cholesterol level. Indeed, if you eat a poor diet, rich in processed foods, and low in real food, it's a pretty safe bet your levels will go up.
What's more, my naturopath also explained that she sees dangerously high serum cholesterol levels in people who are eating relatively well, but who are eating foods to which they are sensitive or allergic. Metabolizing allergens (and living a stressful life) gets the liver producing cholesterol in the body: Eliminate the allergens, she notes, and levels drop drastically, without medication.
Imagine that. Eat well for who you are. Grandmother knew all along.
