A routine physical revealed that President Obama has a “borderline high” cholesterol count. One of my favorite food blogs, Obamafoodorama reported this finding earlier today. Of course immediately the President’s diet comes under review. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stated, ““I think it’s a few more burgers and a few more desserts over the past year”
I’m betting our President eats better than most Americans. He’s got a great garden in his yard and a full staff of chefs that are not using hazardous ingredients that could seriously impact his health. He gets regular physical exercise too. Both the President and First Lady are role models for good food and good health in my book.
Thanks to the internet, you can learn lots of detailed information about the president’s physical condition. It only took me 3 clicks online to learn that his total cholesterol was 209, his HDL 62 and LDL was 138. According to the “experts”, borderline high cholesterol starts at 200, with LDL considered in the same category at 130. Who are these experts that decide what cholesterol level is safe and what is not? The National Cholesterol Education Program, which is part of the NIH’s National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. Some critics and cholesterol skeptics claim that the guidelines themselves are biased toward drug therapy because a majority of the medical experts who drew up those suggestions have financial relationships with drug companies.
I’ve learned more than my share about cholesterol over the years. When I married to my high cholesterol husband 22 years ago, his number was 270. After a decade of oat bran muffins, egg white omelettes and tasteless boneless skinless chicken breasts, his cholesterol continued to climb. Since I didn’t want him taking potentially dangerous cholesterol lowering drugs, I did some research. The first thing I discovered is that cholesterol itself is not bad! Cholesterol is essential for our health. Second thing I learned was that cholesterol is not really directly connected to heart disease. One of my mentors, Annemarie Colbin PhD, has written a great essay on this issue.
So what should our president do to improve his health and make sure he doesn’t end up with a heart attack? Quitting those cigarettes once and for all would be a good start. But let’s face it, he is under mega amounts of stress on a daily basis. How can our president quit the cigarettes, decrease his stress levels and lower his cholesterol? The answer is not high tech or expensive. Its pretty darn simple. TM, Transcendental Meditation, has been shown to do all this and more. While many of us think of the Beatles and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi back in the 70’s, many doctors and scientists have proven its effectiveness in numerous studies.
If I were Mr. Obama’s health consultant, I would strongly recommend he adopt a solid meditation practice. This strategy would help him to decrease his cravings for cigarettes, reduce his stress level and lower his HDL cholesterol. Imagine if meditation instruction were part of healthcare, skyrocketing costs would decrease.This is not woo-woo, there is solid science to back this non toxic, inexpensive therapy.
Why not take it a step further and imagine if all members of Congress had a regular meditation practice. In addition to better health they might even find a way to work together to create meaningful legislation that would make the world a better place.
Unfornately, people–even doctors–have been led to equate high cholesterol with a fatty diet, which isn’t true at all. Most cholesterol is manufactured by the body. Diet, and cholesterol in the diet, has very little to do with it. Perhaps counterintuitively, the real regulator of cholesterol is carbohydrate consumption and the insulin it triggers. You can easily lower your cholesterol counts dramatically–as I did–simply by restricting the amount of carbs you consume. Carbohydrates are especially responsible for the production of small, dense lipoproteins implicated in atherosclerosis. Sonograms reveal that arteries react almost immediately–and not in a good way–to carbohydrate consumption. Carbs also inhibit the production of “good” cholesterol, HDL. But its important to note that the so-called “bad” cholesterol in these reports–the LDL–typically is not an actual reading, but a the result of computing the other cholesterol values. You have to take another test to find out what your true LDL level is.
Ed, I’m completely on the same page as you with regards to refined carbs. Most of the links I included in the blog post explain why saturated fat is not the culprit.
I would also recommend eliminating any juice (http://drsusanrubin.com/rethinking-drink/) in favor of water instead.
Mr. Obama should have his VLDL checked along with homocysteine, C-reactive protein and hemoglobin A1C to more accurately diagnose heart disease risk. Also, gum disease is tightly correlated with heart disease (bleeding gums are a measure of inflammation).
Looking at the big picture, the cigs really need to go. This is why I recommended meditation as a low cost and highly effective strategy to get the cigarettes out of the picture along with helping the stress component.