I was reading back through my old health and looks posts and found this entry which cites a Reuter’s article, now in the archives and so not available, that says that having a quarter of a teaspoon of cinnamon a day can drop cholesterol levels 30 points in a month.

Since I was toying with writing a post on high cholesterol, that made me smile.

R got his blood tests in and I opened them and read them. His cholesterol is 303. That’s a pretty high number. Especially since his HDL’s (happy cholesterols) are low, 40. So he’s in the bad range all the way around.

I asked the nurse about it, because I’ve been sufficiently freaked out about it. She said that often high cholesterol is related to low thyroid. (Not for me.) They are hoping that R taking thyroid will lower his cholesterol all by itself. That’s a great idea. If he ever gets to take the thyroid medicine. He’s tried 2x and both times his heart rate has accelerated. Maybe they should have told him to wait two weeks, like they told me to wait with the testosterone. I’m sure they have some rationale; I just don’t know what it was.

R wants to try the thyroid medicine first to see what it does.

His bestfriend wants to do an ultrasound on his neck to see if he has any plaque build-up.

Honestly, the whole thing scares me. Now I know how the Diva felt when she realized how many heart problems there were in her family. Her immediate family now eats extremely clean.

R says if the armour thyroid doesn’t help and it doesn’t lower through exercise and diet, that he will think about medicine like Lipitor. He also said if he has plaque build-up he will have to go on Ornish’s vegan diet, since it’s the only one that has been shown to reduce plaque.

I hope there is not any plaque build-up.

I want R to be around for a long time. How’s he going to keep me on my toes if he’s not here? Right now, of course, it’s just high cholesterol. We’ll have to wait to find out the other stuff.