Micro-Mini Health Tip

First, a couple of disclaimers: This is just a single data point (me), and I’m not all that certain how really important some of the factors are, anyway. I mean, after all, health professionals can’t keep straight what they think is healthy from one decade to the next, anyway, so take this all with a grain of salt*.

At my checkup this year (yes, in the last four years I’ve actually had annual checkups, something very new in my life *heh*), the Dr was shocked (yes, shocked, I say) to see that I’d lost 25#. So? It’d been a year. Moving on. So blood work (one of the tests was the reason I started doing the annual checkup thing–lotsa nagging from an old college roomie) report came in the mail. HDL up; LDL significantly lower. Total lipids down by almost 40% (so my HDLs are a much higher percentage of lipds, as well). All-in-all, the only things the Dr has been at all concerned about over the last four years are in “healthy” (by current, changeable, standards) ranges.

Other things better, but then one might expect some improvements since I’ve been able to be a bit more active (see comments). Oh, I’ve changed the way I eat as well. Particularly, at the beginning of the summer, I began eating pistachios. Huh?!? Yeh, pistachios. Since then, about three weeks ago, I ran across a video I can’t seem to locate now where some doctor cited some tests that demonstrated eating pistachios worked as well as or better than some high-priced drugs in reducing serum cholesterol, particularly LDLs.

Take that big pharma. Add to the lipid level thingy some other benefits for Olde Phartes, and I think regular “pistachio runs” will be around twc central for a while. *heh*

Pistachios: good eats; good for ya.

Oh, while I’ve been losing weight and controlling BP (see below) and–apparently–improving my serum cholesterol levels (in the view of current medical thought), I’ve added back into my food consumption such things as cream and butter. Missed ’em for years. Go figure. I didn’t tell the Dr about my increased consumption of these kinds of fats. Didn’t want to short-circuit a medical brain.

*salt: OK, another data point. In the past ~three and a half months I have taken 16 of the 105 blood pressure pills** my prescription calls for. I only take one–or a half of one–when my BP is exceeds–on either number–130/80, the newest threshold for “pre-hypertension”. So? So, I eat lots of salt, compared with my Wonder Woman, who eats almost none, as per her doctors’ orders (well, and mine, come to that). Salt’s just another medical boogeyman, as far as I’m concerned.

Oh, another thing. There are a couple of general classes of drugs for lowering blood pressure. Alpha blockers are dangerous, IMO, in that if one is addicted to them (simply taking them as prescribed), STOPPING taking them can be extremely dangerous, actually CAUSING serious blood pressure spikes. That’s because one’s body becomes dependent on them–physically addicted. ACE inhibitors aren’t so dangerous. They simply work by suppressing an enzyme, and going off/on isn’t really dangerous as long as one’s BP is OK without them, that is one is producing optimum levels of angiotensin, which I apparently do as a matter of course, nowadays.