11.02.2009

my cholesterol

Hi all!
I had some blood work done because I've been feeling somewhat fatigued lately. I'm on medication that we suspected might be causing it, but before we changed the dosage, we wanted to rule out everything else. Everything came back great, except my hemoglobins are a little on the low side. So I just need to adjust my iron intake by eating more leafy greens, tofu, tempeh, oats, dried fruit..etc -good sources of iron. But I wanted to share with you my cholesterol level. The doctor looked at it and was shocked. She said she had never seen anyone's cholesterol so low!!! I'm at a whopping 127 mg/dL. The average American cholesterol level is 215 mg/dL (says Lipid Research Clinics Program Epidemiology Committee as found in The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, PhD and Thomas M. Campbell II). I'm on board with the Chinese who average around a 127! An excerpt from The China Study reads:
" At the outset of the China Study, no one could or would have predicted that there would be a relationship between cholesterol and any of the disease rates. What a surprise we got! As blood cholesterol levels decreased from 170 mg/dL to 90 mg/dL, cancers of the liver, rectum, colon, male lung, female lung, breast, childhood leukemia, adult leukemia, childhood brain, adult brain, stomach and esophagus (throat) decreased. As you can see, this is a sizable list. Most Americans know that if you have high cholesterol, you should worry about your heart, but they don't know that you might want to worry about cancer as well."
Dr. Campbell goes on for a few pages about this. I'm writing this to inform you just how important your blood cholesterol levels are and to give some inspiration for those of you thinking of becoming vegetarian or vegan or just want to incorporate more veggies into your diet. So you should really be aware of what your cholesterol is.
How can you decrease your cholesterol level? By eating more plant-based foods such as legumes, light colored vegetables, fruit, carrots, potatoes, etc... and less or no meat, milk, eggs, fish, fat, and animal protein - well you knew that was coming :)
Definitely get The China Study. It's a fascinating book and I'm not exaggerating when I say it may save your life. 

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