Blood Music

[digitaldiscipline]

This has nothing to do with swashbuckling feminine hygeine products. Cavalorn and Marchenland have that link if you're so inclined.

So, in the course of blowing my week off in the service of home repair, gardening, and general physical maintenance, I had a physical, with a followup to get my blood drawn for this, that, and the other.

This and that looked great...
- Total cholesterol: 158 [<200 is recommended]
- LDL: 62 [<100]
- HDL: 40
- LDL:HDL: ~1.5:1 [<5:1]

The other... not so much.
- Triglycerides: 279 [<150]

Per Wikipedia:

Reducing triglyceride levels
Cardiovascular exercise and low-moderate carbohydrate diets containing essential fatty acid are recommended for reducing triglyceride levels. When these fail, fish oils, fibrate drugs, niacin, and some statins are registered for reducing triglyceride levels. Prior alcohol intake can cause elevated levels of triglycerides, and reducing alcohol intake is routinely recommended in patients with high triglyceride levels. [emphasis mine]

I'll file this under "Well, no shit." [Part of me is morbidly curious as to what my workup during the dark days in Pennsyltucky would have looked like.]

So, it's pushups instead of hitting The 'Pine for yours truly from here on out.

Comments

[mighty-man.livejournal.com]

Update: To clarify the above posting, Niacin is B-3, not B-6. Sorry about that. Continuing onward with our regularly scheduled commentary:

Negative. Additional Supplement. Otherwise everyone would be awfully uncomfortable with taking their daily vitamin.

Here's what one website had to say about dosing:
DOSING: The recommended oral dose of immediate release niacin for treating high cholesterol levels in adults is 1-2 g two to three times daily. The maximum recommended dose is 6 g daily. When using extended release tablets, the maximum recommended dose is 2 g per day. Niacin should be started at low doses and increased slowly over several weeks. To avoid stomach upset, niacin should be taken with meals.

Extended release tablets should be swallowed whole and should not be crushed or chewed. Extended release formulations should not be substituted with equivalent doses of immediate release niacin since this leads to an overdose of niacin that may cause liver failure.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

does your current employer carry such phylacteries?

[mighty-man.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you can get Niacin and Extended Release Niacin (Slo-Niacin) OTC at any pharmacy. Most health stores will have it too.