Happy Chanukah! (save the oil)
Tonight heralds Chanukah, the 8-day Jewish festival of lights. Because that
light came from oil, celebrating Hanukah includes eating foods fried in oil.
This year choose an oil low in cholesterol and saturated fats. Elevated cholesterol
is a major risk factor for heart disease. Dr. Rose Marie Robertson, President
of the American Heart Association, is here to discuss this.
"Well, lowering cholesterol is important, because it clearly reduces
your risk for coronary heart disease and stroke. Lowering your cholesterol
by as little as 10% can have an important impact on reducing your risk of dying
of a heart attack."
Dr. Robertson, we know that
HDL is the good cholesterol and LDL is the bad cholesterol, but how do triglycerides
"You know, for both women and men, lowering the LDL--that's the bad
cholesterol--and lowering the triglycerides are important, but for women in particular,
triglycerides have been shown to be of a special importance. So it's important
to pay attention to both those numbers."
Dr. Robertson, what's the most important thing that people with elevated cholesterol
need to know?
"Well, the good news is that with simple dietary changes you can control
your cholesterol to a great extent. . .and that for those people who can't
control it perfectly, we have medications that in almost every case allow us
to control it extremely well."
One common questions I hear is people can't just eat whatever they want and
take more medicine to control their cholesterol.
"It's true that we really have very effective medications now that can
lower cholesterol, but it's important that people work on their diet as well
because you can, in fact, over eat these very effective medications".
Click here for related information.
Created: 12/21/2000  - Donnica Moore, M.D.