Originally Posted by
Gambatte
Hello all,
thanks for contributing to the thread and apologies for being absent for a while.
Here more info:
My BMI is 21, I'm 177cm and 66kg, weight never (!!) been outside the 65-67kg range since mid teen 30yr ago. I've had low body fat all my life. I've been on Mediterranean diet all my life (easier when you are born in Italy and grew up there with Italian parents, my mum is/was a nurse and always been super health conscious and educational.)
My "diet" includes huge amount of veg (yes, very huge), especially raw veg, infinitillions of tomatoes, whole grains, much fresh fruit, tons of olive oil, very little butter fat salt sugar red meat, extremely little cured meat, zero "ready meals". Nobody eats more veg, or less processed, than I do.
Been running / triathlon kind of constantly for 30yr.
Here some weak points: my dad's brother died of heart attack, my dad's father also had one (diagnosed years later), my Mum also has naturally high cholesterol (was 280, now 200 with statins). Family history for heart condition is extremely telling, no surprise is the first thing the cardiologist always ask.
I learnt that, to a very large extent, cholesterol is simply produced by the liver, so with a "wrongly tuned" liver could cause high cholesterol, even with good nutrition and exercise and perfect BMI. Just bad luck.
Spoke with a cardiologist. She didn't like the fact that I had the test just after lunch (cheese, cholesterol -wise the worst aliment) and suggested to get one on empty. But most Dr say unlike other values cholesterol is not really bothered by when you ate last, so not sure what to make...
My ECG was perfect. So is heart rate. But pressure 80-140 is high. She said statin NOT justified right now, but keep monitoring cholesterol AND pressure.
Here next steps, as suggested by the cardiologist: take cholesterol test again, on 12hr fasting, and in any case check it regularly, at least once a year. Check thicknesses of the arteries (a simple eco blabla Doppler test), take some cholesterol reducing supplement (looks like a medicine but it's not, can't remember the name, can be bought even on Amazon). Diet and lifestyle I'm afraid no room for improvement there, they are already perfect.
No sure how much any of you guys is interested, but I like this forum very much, you folks are super supportive, I'll update here...