High Cholesterol

[renewed]

It's not used to measure "health". BMI is used in medicine almost entirely as a guide, a "suggestion" as to how obese a person is. BMI is applied, and is reasonably accurate, in the middle two standard deviations of height and in people who have a typical American sedentary lifestyle. No doctor would use it as some kind of sole determiner of a person's health, but would, and should, use it as a guide to a person's degree of obesity.

Obese = bad health.

Not Obese = maybe good health (obviously tons of variables)

So it can be an indicator of health albeit a poor one.

ugh the arguing...

heres my simple test:

8-pack - you are pretty darn fit
6- pack - nice going
flat pouch - okay..fine..go to the gym and really see what you can do
2-3 month pregnant belly - stop eating so much candy and get to the gym
fat rolls - needs work
beer belly - stop the drinking and needs work.


there you go.

To add:

Wall removed to lift you out of your apartment - you are SOL.

 

[ayeying]

^ lol.

I personally had high cholesterol before for a few years. Just recently, I started riding a motorcycle and my cholesterol level just dropped like a rock. I'm not sure if its the bike or any changes in my diet (not that I know of. I didn't even work out more then usual) but I dropped from a 230 to currently 189 in 6 months. My HDL and LDL were horrible, usually mid 10s for HDL and upper 100s for LDL, now it's mid 40s for HDL and low 90s for LDL.

I'd say the easiest is to cut down on the stuff that contain a lot of cholesterol. Those are easy usually, just getting the ball rolling is hard. It's like when I stopped drinking soda, I swear the first week it was like quitting smoking. Ironically, I quit smoking cold turkey without any problems though

 

[Hmac]

Obese = bad health.

Not Obese = maybe good health (obviously tons of variables)

So it can be an indicator of health albeit a poor one.

It is generally true that the more obese a person is, the more unhealthy they are or will become.

Insurance companies use a BMI of 35 as a cutoff - virtually none of them will allow obesity surgery if less than 35. Virtually all of them will allow it if greater than 40. In between, they will require some sort of obesity-related health problem (diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, degenerative joint disease). They do that because they know that a BMI greater than 40 means if they're not already health-compromised, they will be.

 

[.Andy]

The BMI gives no indication of cardio health

Well it does actually. BMI correlates well with cardiovascular risk.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bookshelf/br.fcgi?book=hsevidsyn&part=A29168

Just a mere ratio of height and weight aka useless.

On the contrary. It's incredibly useful. As others have pointed out it has to be used properly and in context. It's only useless when misapplied - which is usually by the fitness industry. As far as correlating with cardiovascular risk, cancer, stroke, diabetes, surgical morbidity, etc it's a very useful as a tool.

In a very short example: Look at a football player (NFL for example). Their BMI will be much higher than an average Joe of the same height. Why? Muscle weighs more than fat. Does this mean they are in bad health?

What you are doing here is pointing out an exception. Like any statistical population there is a bell curve. These people make up a very small percentage of the population at the tails of the curve and do not invaildate the BMI as a clinical indicator. Your doctor is able to tell if you are built like an NFL football player (you aren't ). If they can't, again, you need a new doctor.

 

[kellen]

BMI is just like a lot of tools that are used that when taken alone don't mean much or could have a high error rate, but when taken together they can be useful to assess risk and diagnose.

These include waist size, hypercoagulability, fasting glucose, high and low cholesterol, triglycerides and many more.

 

[Cloatus]

Treating High Cholesterol by Replacing Hormones

"Could it be that everything we think we know about cholesterol is wrong? Current conventional wisdom assumes that we obtain too much cholesterol in our diet or produce too much in our liver. A shocking finding by two Life Extension medical advisors reveals that the underlying cause of excess serum cholesterol is a multi-hormone deficiency. Since cholesterol is the precursor to steroidal hormones, when we become deficient in pregnenolone, DHEA, testosterone, progesterone, etc., our body responds by overproducing cholesterol in an attempt to restore healthy hormone balance."

http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2003/sep2003_report_chol_01.htm

 

[Hmac]

"Could it be that everything we think we know about cholesterol is wrong? Current conventional wisdom assumes that we obtain too much cholesterol in our diet or produce too much in our liver. A shocking finding by two Life Extension medical advisors reveals that the underlying cause of excess serum cholesterol is a multi-hormone deficiency. Since cholesterol is the precursor to steroidal hormones, when we become deficient in pregnenolone, DHEA, testosterone, progesterone, etc., our body responds by overproducing cholesterol in an attempt to restore healthy hormone balance."

http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2003/sep2003_report_chol_01.htm

 

[renewed]

http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2003/sep2003_report_chol_01.htm

That thing is almost 7 years old...

 

[Hmac]

That thing is almost 7 years old...

And meticulously peer-reviewed, no doubt...

 

[Surely]

Explain why now

My question is why use it at all? If the "measure" is deeply flawed, why even use it to begin with?

Well it does actually. BMI correlates well with cardiovascular risk.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bookshelf/br.fcgi?book=hsevidsyn&part=A29168

On the contrary. It's incredibly useful. As others have pointed out it has to be used properly and in context. It's only useless when misapplied - which is usually by the fitness industry. As far as correlating with cardiovascular risk, cancer, stroke, diabetes, surgical morbidity, etc it's a very useful as a tool.


What you are doing here is pointing out an exception. Like any statistical population there is a bell curve. These people make up a very small percentage of the population at the tails of the curve and do not invaildate the BMI as a clinical indicator. Your doctor is able to tell if you are built like an NFL football player (you aren't ). If they can't, again, you need a new doctor.

Yes, this should sufficiently answer your question, db. Well stated, .Andy.

I would have posted something similar, but I had to finish studying and then go write an exam.

Now I'm working on messing up my BMI with the Boddingtons Pub Ale that I picked up on the way home......

 

[Hmac]

So, yes...If A=B and B=C then A=C. BMI has predictive value of premature death.

Even so, BMI is generally not used clinically as a single-point measure of anything other than obesity, and it's primary clinical use in that regard is determining whether or not a patient qualifies as morbidly obese.