Fall 2013 Status Update

Haven't yet posted my last set of numbers from (roughly) six-month cycles. In fact, everything is settling down.

Cholesterol holds steady at 154 as of the August 2nd tests. I'm quite happy with this. Took me a long time to get here. Have been holding since January of 2010 when I resumed using statins. First at 2.5 on the recommendation of my cardiologist. Upped it slightly this past year (2013) by alternating 2.5 versus 5mg/day. My GP is quite happy with this as well.

LDL is also okay at 89 last test. It's been creeping up. I've had it in the 70's and the Orange County Institute recommends 77. Still, this is much better than without statins. This would appear to be the key contribution of statins. It's important, since LDL levels are taken more seriously than overall Cholesterol levels or the ratio between over all cholesterol and HDL.

It's HDL that I am concerned about. Couldn't quite muster 40 this last round. 40 is the threshold of normal. The Rx Omega 3 helps here, but according to my GP, Niacin no longer works. I am not convinced of that but I haven't been taking it. I may start on 500mg/day and work up. I think that has helped in the past. I don't think I can get any further increase from exercise. The Dr. says that more Omega 3 is not a good thing, so no help there. The Dr. is not worried about this. For him that is close enough. He thinks that I'm optimized in terms of medication. Losing 10 pounds would be the next step. A longer term goal would be to maintain 195, then move to 185. That seems pretty tough considering my interest in cooking and gormandizing.

Triglycerides are good. The Trilipix is key here.

CHL/HDL ration is about 4, which is average.

Good news that my liver enzymes are okay. I can tolerate the slight increase in statins (Crestor alternatiing 5 and 2.5/day)

And my Vitamin D deficiency is almost rectified 29 where 30 is the threshold of normal. I upped my intake here to 5,000 units/day. I understand that particularly good things happen in the upper part of the normal window. 5,000/day will keep me moving into that good zone (high normal) but I need to be sure not to edge too far above normal where there could be toxic effects. Given the slow rise, that won't be for several months. Hopefully, the next Vitamin-D3 test should show me in the 50's or above. There are some general immunity boosts there and some metabolism and heart-health benefits.

The results from the metabolic panel are consistent with earlier ones. Pretty steady-state here.

Today in a particularly relaxed moment was able to do the Polar OwnIndex on both watches. Came out 40 in each case, which is in the "Excellent" category for my age. Also, this year's results were consistent with last year's also at 40. This number correlates quite closely to my O2Max reading were I to do one.

So "Holding my Own" would be the way to sum this up. Whether there is an actual rollback from the plaque buildup detected at the OC Institute is another question. My gut feeling is that is would be pretty mucfh the same if I did the $300 or $600 (all organ) test. If I got some really low LDL readings, lost 20 pounds, had an OwnIndex of 50, I bet there would be some rollback. I wonder, though, whether I could ever meet those goals.(Canute has just run a Half Marathon at my age at 1:47!)