Last August, I faced a little bit of a health dilemma: I had been treated for high serum cholesterol levels and hypertension for more than a decade, but the blood pressure medicine wasn’t really controlling my hypertension anymore. I knew I needed to make some changes, because I had run out of pharmaceutical options. My cholesterol levels responded well to the medication, but my blood pressure was too high.
I decided I needed to make some dietary changes; I have always eaten fairly well in terms of types of foods consumed, or so I thought, but I just ate too much. I have always eaten a lot of eggs, but I tended to have cereal for breakfast during the week. So, I took some of the dietary tips from research supported by the Egg Nutrition Center and I traded my weekday morning raisin bran cereal for three eggs, every day. I also got serious about exercising on a much more regular basis.
In April of this year, my physician took me off one of the three blood pressure medications I had been prescribed, all of which I had been on at the maximum dose. He also told me to quit taking my cholesterol medicine for three months. I recently had my serum cholesterol level rechecked and it is still comfortably in the healthy range without the medication. The cholesterol result really surprised me because my total cholesterol level was considered high as long ago as when I was a recent college graduate, and that was a long time ago.
At this point in my tale, the only take-home message is yet more anecdotal evidence that eating eggs doesn’t raise serum cholesterol. But, there are some confounding factors in this eggs-and-cholesterol feel-good story. So, as Paul Harvey used to say, “Now is time for the rest of the story.”
“Exercising on a more regular basis” included working with a trainer who makes me do things I haven’t even thought about doing since wrestling practice in high school. So, is it the eggs or the Pilates? If you only want to try one, I would recommend that you start with the eggs, because Pilates is never served “over easy.”
