As luck would have it, I had to run back into the store a little later on another errand; I printed the following for her.  I’ve sent this to at least one of our fellow Salon bloggers in the last year.  With holiday feasting commenced, perhaps it’s better to look at our lifestyles now rather than waiting until the New Year and the annual resolutions that may be too late.

We live by this set of “rules” in this household; my spouse is diabetic and has high cholesterol.  Our family doctor has prescribed statins for my spouse, but I’m concerned about the effects of statins over a twenty-year or more period (at least one statin has been pulled off the market as well – Baychol, by Bayer).  It’s in our best interest to do everything possible up to drug therapy to control both his high cholesterol and diabetes for this reason.  Besides, I have two kids who need to learn to eat healthy, so that they can defeat adult onset diabetes and high cholesterol before it even starts.

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IMPORTANT:  Stay on your statins and any blood thinners your doctor has already prescribed for you; review any changes in diet and exercise with your doctor before implementation, in case of negative drug or therapy interactions.  There are folks who are genetically predisposed to high cholesterol and absolutely must take statins – you may be one of them.

Most people can cut their cholesterol levels easily, and most of the work can be done without drugs  My father's cholesterol back in the early 1980's was about 330.  He went on a kick of cutting out all fat and running 6 to 10 miles a day, dropped 30 lbs. and his cholesterol went to about 220.  He's maintained his running regimen for the last 20+ years, literally runs circles around men my husband's age.  He's 71 now, and probably good for another 30+ years.

However, an Asian doctor he had chastised him, told him that Asian men like my father should really have cholesterol closer to 140.  He kept at my dad until his cholesterol was down to 170.  Dad used this book, The 8-Week Cholesterol Cure, as a starting point (first edition) and it made all the difference in the world, helped him get down to 170.

Dad still has to stay at it, but he's fully indoctrinated and he's also a damned good guinea pig.  He and my mom and I experimented with the Atkins diet last year.  What we've found, between Atkins, the Eades' "Protein Power Diet" and a few other resources like Dr. Terry Shintani's "Hawaii Diet" is a combination of successful pointers that will interleave nicely with Kowalski's “Cholesterol Cure” work.  Here's a run down, will give you a quick cheat sheet to hit the ground running:

1) NO TRANSFATTY ACIDS / TRANSFAT FOODS.  PERIOD.

This stuff is EVIL.  It acts like a glue to bind cholesterol to your pipes and clog them up.  Watch for anything with hydrogenated / hydrogenation -- bad, bad, bad stuff. (If my dad eats anything with this stuff in it, his cholesterol goes up.  Nasty.)

2) Cut out as much processed sugar and wheat as possible, particularly anything with transfats in it.  Sugar and flour are converted more readily by many people into cholesterol. It's not only the cholesterol you eat, it's the cholesterol your body MAKES that's hurting you; nip it in the bud by cutting down the source.

3) Take a multivitamin with B complex, particularly Niacin, every day.  Kowalski's program will emphasize niacin - do at least the multivitamin with 100%+ of niacin, more would be better.  Niacin acts to inhibit production of cholesterol by your liver.  (If you are on a statin, be absolutely certain to check with your doctor about niacin.)

4) Replace margarine with margarines made with "plant sterols" and/or "plant stanols", without transfats.  Sterols are better than stanols, but both are absorbed by the colon and block absorption of cholesterol by the colon.  Brands you'll find in most grocery stores: Benecol, Take Control, Smart Balance Plus (make sure it's the PLUS version since the other Smart Balance products are only transfat free and don't contain the sterols).  You can also get a product called "Cholestoff" at Walgreens, Walmart, with other vitamins; provides sterols in pill form, easier to use when you're traveling or busy.

5) Integrate olive oil into cooking; remove other oils and replace with olive oil.  This will help those good cholesterol numbers greatly.  Buy a pump spray bottle and use in place of non-stick sprays; make your own salad dressings and spreads with it.  Use light olive oil in baking (not the best in things like cakes, but pretty tasty in most foods).

6) Take a fish oil supplement daily.  Same as olive oil above, contains omega-3 fatty acids that are key to your cholesterol numbers improvement.  You may want to do research on these, since there are some concerns about mercury level in many fish oil supplements.

7) Integrate flax seed into your diet.  Flax sees also contain omega-3 fatty acids. Try getting a couple tablespoons a day into your diet; ground up seeds (flax meal) can be sprinkled into oat meal, added to bread dough, etc.  Increases fiber intake, improves good cholesterol numbers, contains a natural blood thinning agent to improve blood flow in restricted vessels.  Flax seed oil supplements will help, but not as much as the whole seed itself since supplements do not provide fiber.

8) A little alcohol, every day, WITH THE MEAL, unless contraindicated by your doctor.  Red wine, particularly that made from grapes grown in northern climates, is best because of the amount of reservatrol (antioxidant) contained in it.  Consuming the wine WITH THE MEAL changes the metabolism and affects how the food is converted into blood sugar, as well as acting as a natural blood thinning agent.  (Concerned about alcohol?  Try Splenda-sweetened grape juice, the purple kind; reservatrol is found in the skins of grapes, which make grape juice purple.)

9) Avoid eating between meals, particularly starchy snacks.  Eating high carb foods increases appetite at next meal, which in turn increases volume of carbs available for conversion into cholesterol.  If you must eat between meals, stick with high fiber vegetables or protein.  Never, ever eat dessert by itself long after your main evening meal; it's best consumed immediately following a well-balanced meal which has a good amount of protein.  The protein will help buffer the absorption of the dessert's sugars by the body so that it isn’t converted as readily into fat/cholesterol.

10) Make sure you are getting enough protein every day.  Meals should be 30 to 40% protein in proportion to rest of meal; the rest should be complex carbohydrates (potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, peas, corn are quite starchy and are more like breads than vegetables).  Soy protein is great since it does not contain cholesterol and may offer additional antioxidant benefits.

11)  Aim for the recommended daily allowance of fiber as a MINIMUM.  The average human needs 2 to 4 lbs. of food to feel satisfied; if you're not eating starch and you've cut out a lot of fats, you will need more fibrous foods to feel full.  Getting your RDA of fiber will get you there -- and it will also help flush out cholesterol you've eaten.  Whole grains as much as possible, many leafy greens, cruciferous vegetables (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts), whole tomatoes, whole berries.  UPDATE: Your fiber intake should be both soluble and insoluble types.  Oats (oatmeal, oat bran both) are a great source of soluble fiber; oats acts like a sponge to soak up cholesterol and remove it from the body.  Slip oatmeal and bran into many foods -- make muffins, pancakes, add it to ground turkey when making meatloaf or meatballs, use it to make topping for fruit crisps, etc.  Greens and other non-starchy vegetable matter, wheat bran are forms of insoluble fiber; this kind of fiber acts like a broom to sweep cholesterol out of your body.  Make sure you get both kinds, every day, preferably in excess of the daily requirement.

12)  Exercise every day, following restrictions as indicated by your doctor. This not only keeps your heart in shape, but it improves the elasticity of your circulatory system.  Your blood pressure will reflect this change, as well as your blood sugar and cholesterol.

13) An aspirin, every day, if permitted by your doctor.  Aspirin acts as a blood thinner; it also acts as an anti-inflammatory.  Many (if not a majority) of illnesses are actually symptoms of acute inflammation; blockages in arteries are due not only to plaques formed by cholesterol on the interior walls, but inflammation of the arteries themselves.  Aspirin is also proving in recent studies to have benefits in reducing the chance of colorectal cancer -- possibly in relation to reducing inflammation.  If permitted by your doctor, treat this like a vitamin: one-a-day.

Remember hearing about the French Paradox?  The French have a much lower rate of heart disease than Americans, in spite of eating real butter and cheeses and smoking like fiends.  Note how many of the above steps the French observe in every day life.  They don't snack, they walk every where, they take wine with meals, they eat meat in proportion to other foods in a meal, they eat plenty of vegetables and fruits...there's more (like taking the time enjoy cooking and eating their food), but I think I made my point.  Be French -- and ignore the neo-cons who bad-mouth them.  The French will outlive them (living well is the best revenge, n'est-ce pas?).

Books I recommend -- get them from the library if you can to try them first:

The New 8-Week Cholesterol Cure – author Robert Kowalski saved his own life using the techniques described in this book, and most of the information above is in the same book.  Make sure you read the NEW one, not the first edition, as the latest edition discusses statins and plant sterols/stanols.

Protein Power by Drs. Eades -- better than Atkins, helps explain the necessary ratio of protein to complex carbohydrate foods.

The Hawaii Diet by Dr. Terry Shintani -- explains the improvements to health from better eating with emphasis on whole grains, foods of one's culture

Nutripoints by Dr. Roy Vartebedian -- helps make the right choices for nutrition based on increasing fiber, vitamins and avoiding animal fats, sugars (scores alcohol negatively, which I would discount to some degree because of more recent findings; a single glass of red wine with a meal may be beneficial, but a shot of vodka at any time may not be).

Can't think of the name of this book, but it's an exercise program by Dr. Kenneth Cooper -- emphasis on FITNESS, not on sexy body or any of that peripheral stuff.

Also visit http://www.realage.com -- take the test.  Allow yourself at least an hour to do this, be prepared to answer questions on what you've been eating and what you take (down to the microgram) in the way of dietary supplements/vitamins.  The answers and analysis are extremely helpful in shaping a younger diet and a younger you -- yes, you can reverse some aging.  No kidding.  I'm really only 29 now, instead of the 40-odd years on my birth certificate.

This stuff isn’t rocket science.  It’s pretty easy to do.  What are you waiting for?

I hope you’re not going to wait for New Year’s Day!  Remember, a habit can be changed in 21 days; you could be most of the way there by 01/01/2005!