To Eat Trans Fat or Not?
Your Cholesterol Might Have to Come Down--Way Down
New guidelines make it even more important we know our cholestrol levels.
If you've been lackadaisical about getting your cholesterol checked because you watch your weight, don't have heart problems, and think you're too young to worry about a heart attack, a panel of 27 heart-disease experts has a harsh message for you and others equally casual. Under tough cholesterol guidelines rolled out last week, many people will find that they are now considered to be at far greater risk of a heart attack than they were under the old version. The new report recommends that they and their doctors take decisive steps to lower the risk.
If everyone heeded the new recommendations, some 65 million people would alter their diet, up from 52 million under the previous guidelines, which date from 1993. Cholesterol-lowering medications, especially the class called statins, get wholehearted approval after years of advice to prescribe them gingerly. The guidelines call for 36 million people to take them, compared with 13 million currently. "We ought to address high cholesterol very aggressively," says James Cleeman, coordinator of the National Cholesterol Education Program, a coalition of public and private groups that developed the guidelines. "So it's not necessary to be reticent about recommending aggressive therapy, meaning drugs."
The urgency behind the report's dry language is unmistakable. Panel members had spent 20 months combing through stacks of studies that collectively showed that oversize waistlines, little exercise, and cholesterol levels that generally are still too high pose an even greater risk than had been thought. If all Americans lived by the guidelines, says Cleeman, the overall death rate would drop by an estimated 30 percent.
Even if you don't need a prescription, the recommendations will certainly change the way you--and your doctor--think about cholesterol, from when and how often it should be checked to ways of treating it if it's high. Here is a summary of the key changes in testing and treatment, and what they might mean for you.
Why than is the consumer blasted with media, grocery store advertisements, billboards claiming that doritos, crispy creme donuts and the like are now made with no trans fats. If that is the case, then we don't need to change our eating habits, just take pills. Who is to know for sure?
