Saturday, November 14, 2009

Talking about cholesterol and old age

From our e-mails with Wong Sir on health and I find it useful for folks in our age:

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Health, cholesterol, exercise etc:

Thanks for your various kind suggestions and advice.

1. Irene: Many friends tell me I should eat麥皮. I’m quite lazy and try to avoid cooking and washing dishes. So I seldom eat麥皮, until recently.

I come across Quaker Instant Oatmeals – 10 packets per box for less than $3. I buy different mixes. I’m now starting having instant 麥皮, perhaps about 4-5 times a week. I’ll follow Irene’s advice and buy some Lecithin capsules/granules in the next few days.

2. One thing bad about me is whenever I watch TV ads about food, I’ll start searching for yuimmies and start eating. Bad, Bad, Bad! But I’m afraid I can’t control myself. Sometimes when I go out to eat, I’ll ask my friends to give me a kick if I start eating too much.

3. Like Tony, junk food usually ends up inside my tummy. It really takes great effort to control my eating habit. I’m trying…

4. Ding: Thanks for your detailed explanation and suggestion about Welchol. When I see my doctors, I ask them. Very true about taking care of the pain first before exercising.

When I was at the cardiac rehab center a few months ago, I could do walking/treadmilling for at least 45 minutes 4 to 5 times a week. Then because of the pain, my exercises were reduced to 2-3 minutes 1 to 2 times weekly. Now I can do treadmilling for about 25 minutes maybe 3 times a week.

5. Tony: You’re right about over-exercising. This is one of my weak points. Yes, the clinic receptionist always insists that I fast for the blood test and the stress test. With my recent resumption of exercising,

I should have no problem with the stress test, but I really don’t know about the blood test since I’m not taking lipiptor.

(By that way, my cardiologist was extremely angry when I asked him many months ago whether I could stop taking lipitor. He said I may die even if I don’t take it for one day.) From time to time, I eat bread that contains 10 grains with peanut butter and/or Becel omega 3 plus margarine. I’ll visit your website again tomorrow.

Thanks again, all, for your various suggestions and advice.

HS

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Irene wrote:

Have you been eating 麥皮 (need 1 cup, dry) every day and Lecithin 黃豆卵磷脂?, (in the formof granules or capsules), theyre suppose to be able to bring down the cholesterols.

Irene also wrote:

One way of stopping yourself eating your favorite junks is to stare at them and imagine something bad that look similar to that item. (sounds like Harry Potter films ). A guy from Australia used this method (+ exercise of course) to loose over 50 kg. and is making heaps of money now by promoting this method. Can’t remember his name off-hand.

Tony wrote:

I stared at my junk food (similar to stare at the sheep movie), but somehow they found their way into my month.

Ding wrote:

I am only trying to help from my own experience and research, not trying to pretend to be omnipotent.

Please ask your doctor about a drug called Welchol. It is not a statin (as in Lipitor, Crestor). Statins gave you the muscle problem. Welchol does not work on everyone but if it works on you, you are saved.

Statin's direct link to this muscle pain and damage has not been found but scientist found out it turned on a gene, the atrogin-1. This gene happens to be found active in cancer and AIDS patients at the beginning stages of the breakdown of their muscle. So far scientist are not sure if statins turn on the gene.

They only found this gene on. This is a good clue to explain why the muscle pain in people taking these statin drugs. Welchor does not get absorbed by the body. What it does is to carry away the bile acids from your blood. In order to replenish this useful acid, your liver will have to manufacture more.

The liver uses cholesterol to manufacture bile acid therefore it has to collect a lot of them back from your blood. This lowers your blood cholesterol. Welchor gets out of your system with the bile acid. Your stool becomes sticky and you will fart a lot (and awful too) but that will stop.

I know because I used to have high cholesterol and I took Lipitor. I had so much pain that I couldn't even strap my 二胡 on my shoulder and walk to my student's home which was three blocks. I couldn't walk freely. I switched to Welchor and I was fine. My cholesterol dropped and kept dropping.

I did a lot of research on this. Then with my muscle being fine I started to jog and practice my martial art again. Two years later, I am all healthy and I reduced my Welchor to half, then to 1/4 and now none.

My point is, you must take care of your pain first otherwise there is no way for you to do any exercise.

Tony wrote:

John, well said. I was about to give the same advice, but you took my words out of my mouth. Here are some other hints.

* As John said, strenuous exercise is no good. I had a doctor friend died of heart attack when playing badminton with his son several years ago. He was my age.

* You really need to fast before the tricel. test. Better to have a light dinner and take the test in the morning with only water.

* It is dangerous to stop Lipito. The doctor may have a good reason.

* Try a diet of 5 grains.

* There are several good suggestion in my blog. Need to have a post to summarize all health hints when I have time.

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