Cholesterol

I am back in school now, after a long, relaxing break...I had four days at home by myself before the semester started, and that was great. I cleaned the house, reorganized and cleaned out my files, and took care of all the stuff that seems to fall by the wayside while I am in school.

I am extremely excited for this semester because I like all of my classes, and I think it will be a fairly light load. I am keeping it light on purpose because Matt and I are going to India in February and so I will miss 2 weeks of school. My classes are: International Nutrition Programs, Monitoring and Evaluation of Nutrition programs, Nutrition through the Lifecycle, Health Communication and Chinese. The international nutrition class is supposed to be amazing, and the professor does most of his work in Bangladesh, so it should be interesting.

While I had time off I went to see my primary care physician. I had my cholesterol checked. I knew it would be high, given my family history, but I was still shocked when I got the results. My HDL (good) cholesterol was 51, LDL (bad) cholesterol was 290, with the total being 349. Needless to say, that is extremely high! On a positive note, my triglyceride level was 41. In the letter he sent me, my doctor said that this is normal, but when I looked online, the normal range for triglycerides was 50-150. So, my level is very low, which is indicative of my diet.

I try to eat very healthfully because I know that I have health issues (hypercholesterolemia and multiple sclerosis), but when I get blood profile results like that one, I get so discouraged! It makes me think, "What is the point of even bothering? Maybe I should accept my fate."

The other issue that this brings up is whether or not I should go on statins to lower my cholesterol. I really don't want to go on statins, because I am so young and I would have to be on them for the rest of my life. Plus, I do not have any other risk factor for heart disease. Also, the fact that Dad was taking statins religiously and watching what her ate, and then died at 43, makes me very bitter about the whole statin thing.

Then there is an article that I found from the Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, that says this:

"The LDL-C (calc.) level of the patient was much higher than the direct measurement level. We attribute this to the low TG value, resulting in an overestimation of the LDL-C value. Our finding suggests that, similar to high TG levels, low TG levels can also affect the calculation of LDL-C values. As to how low the TG levels need to be before affecting the LDL-C (calc.) is currently under our investigation."

This article may not be significant, but I am trying to make myself feel better about my high LDL levels! However, my triglyceride levels aren't extremely low, so the article may not apply to me. I am going to ask my doctor.