cole s. terrell

[rone]

As i enter fuddiduddihood (AKA my fourth decade of life), i've gained nearly 20 pounds in the last two years, and now i have high cholesterol (229 total, and "bad" cholesterol was high on its own, but the good/bad ratio was OK), which means cutting back on my profligate intake of sweet, delicious pork, as well as eggs (and ikkyu2 has made it even worse for me by pointing out that one egg yolk contains a week's worth of cholesterol). It should also mean i will start exercising, but who am i kidding? I'll just cut back on the bad stuff and eat Cheerios.

Comments

[fredfred.livejournal.com]

Eggs contain 250 mg cholesterol per.

Heart-healthy diets (like the American Heart Association's) recommend 200-300 mg of cholesterol per day.

Dunno where ikkyu2 is getting his figures, but that sez one egg max per day (averaged), depending on other sweet, sweet meats.

And some people don't even think that dietary cholesterol has much effect on blood cholesterol levels.

References:
http://www.ivillage.com/food/experts/nutrition/articles/0,5370,5344,00.html
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4547
http://www.newsday.com/features/food/ny-p2foodmain3212551apr09,0,1678702.story?coll=ny-features-headlines

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I should know better than to trust a neurologist with dietary concerns.

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

a) MONEY FUCKS SCIENCE. Viz: You can't even discover how much cholesterol there is in the median egg. The egg lobby says 70 mg. God knows how they're measuring it. If they work the way the drug companies do, they have an office-building somewhere full of people whose only occupation is to hunt out people doing research on eggs and offer to fund their next study - with the unspoken caveat that, if it's egg-friendly, it'll lead to more and more egg-study funding. Scientists like funding.

b) You can't avoid cholesterol, unless you're vegan. If you eat an egg, you're going to wind up way over your AHA cholesterol limit for that day. End of story.

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I appear to have spoken too soon. There's a huge egg lobby to pay for as much crap science as you like, which gives me caution when browsing a web page at Purdue University (http://ag.ansc.purdue.edu/ispa/news/Articles/eggcholest.html), for the love of Pete - need we even ask where their bias lies? Hit the MEMBERSHIP button on that page to see how you can join the International Poultry Society - but there's a pretty good study out there with 15000 subjects showing no relation between egg intake and blood cholesterol levels, and I remember the 1999 NEJM study about 7 eggs per week not raising the amount of stroke.

Your body needs about 2000-2500 mg of cholesterol a day, but can get 1825 mg or so of that from re-absorption of pre-used cholesterol. Cholesterol's in everything you eat - it's part of cell membranes - so eating an egg gives ya a real goose in the old cholesterol tank. It appears, however, that lecithin in eggs may reduce cholesterol absorption.

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

For all that, though, I've found that I can alter my fasting cholesterol level by about 50 points by altering long term trends in my own diet. Your mileage will vary, and in the next few years we'll uncover the genetic determinants of why this should be so.

Mind that cholesterol levels are done fasting, by the way. They're not meaningful for predictive purposes if they're not.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, i figured that's why the BASTARDS at the doctor's office make me go hungry on Phlebotomy Day.

When you say "long term", how long is that? 6-12 months?

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

Oh, maybe 3-6 months or so. I guess I check cholesterol levels about that often when i'm trying to lower a patient's level.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

OK, the doc wanted me to come back in 3 months, so it sounds like it's possible for me to have a 30pt drop by then. I just gotta stay away from the beyoootiful pork. Ugh.