checked?

Who does their lab/blood work? Or do you avoid them or do you think there not important or you can't afford the costs?


Why Vegan?
Because I have the most love and admiration for all animals of the earth!!!
a rawvegan hopeful, rawdev4life!!!

rawdev,

I'm new to this board and new to raw foods, but I recently had my bloodwork done as part of a regular physical checkup and totally impressed my doctor. I am not 100% raw, but trying to stick to a vegan diet, while transitioning to totally raw (went vegan a little over 2 months ago). My blood sugar levels were in a good range, all other numbers were in good range, my calcium levels were a little low, but greens are something I have been striving to increase in my diet. What really amazed me was my cholesterol results. About a year and a half ago, I had my total cholesterol tested and was at 165 (while eating the SAD diet). My new tests showed total cholesterol of 137! I can only attribute this to my elimination of all animal products. As far as I know, only three things impact cholesterol levels - cholesterol consumption, exercise, and your body producing its own. My exercise level has not changed, so unless my body is not producing as much cholesterol as it used to, I can only assume the elimination of animal products is responsible. My doctor was flabergasted - she said that kind of drop is not something people usually achieve without the help of cholesterol-lowering drugs. I can only believe that the numbers will continue to improve as I go more and more raw...

Does anyone else know anything about this? Could this simple diet change cause such a drastic effect on cholesterol levels?

Absolutely! And why not? If you aren't eating cholesterol, why would it be a prolem? My doctor LOVES to check mine - it's been 136 for years! He always asks me if I want it checked and I just smile and say "What for?".

Life Is Good!

alive!

My total was around 120 last time I had it checked.

Yes, it happens when eliminating cholesterol, your diet is high in fiber, and your saturated fat intake is low to very low, most people's total and LDL will plummet. For a long-term veg with a sensible eating plan it's natural and easy, but to normal SADs it is quite a drastic change that they are unwilling to make and the ineffectual changes that they do make (chicken instead of beef, etc.) usually results in ineffectual changes in their plasma (and more importantly, risk) levels.

But there is a bell curve as to how people respond. Some people inherit an LDL receptor pathology for plasma levels that resist budging no matter what the diet. This is about less than 1% of the population, though. A lot of people use this as an excuse, and even the statin peddlers are trying to make it sound like diet doesn't work for a lot of people. It's an ugly lie. It's the other way around: diet does work for almost everyone but few are willing to make the changes required.

Also one other thing to note, it might not be cholesterol per se but oxidized cholesterol that does the damage. And not saturated fats in general but only some of them. Others are fairly harmless.

So if someone was following/living this lifestyle for a
few years and you decided to have your numbers ran.
They turned out to be not what you expected or not where
they should be.

What would you do?

I mean,
How could this be possible, Why has this happened,
Now What?


Why Vegan?
Because I have the most love and admiration for all animals of the earth!!!
a rawvegan hopeful, rawdev4life!!!

for this if it were to happen/occur...


Why Vegan?
Because I have the most love and admiration for all animals of the earth!!!
a rawvegan hopeful, rawdev4life!!!

Once, my meat-eating friend insisted that I should have my vegetarian son tested for iron deficiency. I did, and his results were perfect. A few months later her meat-eating daughter was diagnosed with anemia. Yet, she still says that vegetarians are prone to iron deficiency Gasp...

Gosia


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My medical doctor checks my blood every year, and the results last time were "perfect, perfect perfect" according to him. But what does that mean? They found nothing wrong, so does that mean everything is right?

So I went to the naturopath, and had him do a blood test. He had a lot to say, and gave me several bits of advice to optimize my health.

I will repeat this comparison in January - wonder how it will turn out...

A couple of years ago I got an urgent call from the doctor's office after my mammogram - pretty scary, especially having been through cancer once before already. But as things turned out, they were calling me to tell me that my doctor died.

Unbelievable!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2006 03:44AM by Sapphire.

Can you get your blood work tested on MediCare?

Since I live in Canada, I don't have to pay for my doctor appointments at my medical doctor, but I do have to pay to see my naturopath, my homeopath, my Chinese medicine doctor and any other alternatives. It adds up to quite a lot, but after going through a major health crisis, it's cheap compared to losing my health. (Some stuff can be claimed on my tax return, which helps a bit).

Now don't even get me started on a medical system that is willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to help me out if I show up with full blown cancer, but won't help me out with a couple of hundred dollars to pay the naturopath to help me prevent that from happening in the first place.

Cheers!