Cholesterol checks

Debbie was a fast-food addict who lost her mother to a heart attack when Debbie was 22. Now that Debbie was nearing the age at which her mother passed away, she was frightened. However, Debbie believed that knowledge is power, so she decided to research heart disease. Diet was one of the foremost subjects found in her search, and Debbie learned that there is a difference in types of fat. Not only should a heart-conscious person eat a low-fat diet, but healthy fats should be included as well. She learned about the difference between saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats essential fatty acids and trans-fats. She even learned that cholesterol is a fat-like substance called a lipoprotein and that the blood level should be below 200mg/dL. Debbie decided to change her diet and get her cholesterol checked. She wanted, for the sake of her own children, to live beyond her mother s age. 

National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) guidelines recommend that all adults over age 20 have their cholesterol checked at least once every 5 years. The guidelines below give a better idea of where the cholesterol numbers of any person should be. 

CHD can be prevented to some extent by controlling risk factors. Hypertension and plasma cholesterol are both affected by the diet. Advice to patients with a family history of coronary heart disease would include suggesting a cholesterol check, and, depending on the results, reducing saturated fat intake to around 8—10 per cent of the diet. Omega-3 poljomsaturated FAs (found in seafoods and rapeseed oils) should be increased in the diet since they lower LDL-cholesterol. Monounsaturated fats (in olive oil) should also be increased, but total fat should not exceed 30 per cent of the dietary intake. Hjrpertension can be reduced by restricting salt intake (19). 

There is little or no evidence that thiazides should be avoided in patients with hyperlipidemia (353), although some physicians continue to make this recommendation. Serum lipids should be checked within 3-6 months of starting thiazides to detect the very few patients who have an increase in total cholesterol or LDL cholesterol. This should not add to the cost of care, since serum chemistry need only be obtained once or twice a year and is no reason to avoid the use of these drugs as initial monotherapy. 

The most extensive effort involves quality assurance. CDC provides common quality control (QC) materials and all members use standardized QC procedures. In addition, CDC regularly surveys the CRMLN laboratories to ensure they meet the required criteria. Initially, surveys were conducted monthly however, as the laboratories gained experience and performance improved, the survey schedule was changed to bimonthly. These surveys use CDC frozen serum secondary reference materials that have been prepared using NCCLS C37-A protocol [28], TC surveys include three levels analyzed in duplicate in two runs. HDLC surveys include four levels analyzed in duplicate in four runs. As an additional check on the quantitative step of the HDLC method, a low-total cholesterol material with cholesterol concentration <100 mg/dl is added to the TC survey. LDLC surveys include four levels analyzed in quadruplicate in four runs. 

High 08 1 High oleic sunflower and safflower olive unlikely palm olein will also raise 06 0 lard and tallow may also have high 08 0 and 04 0 is likely to be slightly elevated check cholesterol... 

It is important to check the names of compounds on medicine bottles as they might have disastrous effects if wrongly chosen. One common chemical, cholesterol, has 256 possible stereo isomers but only one is actually made in nature. 

Caliper Technologies Corporation, Palo Alto, California, is working toward creating a miniature chemistry laboratory about the size of a toaster that can be used with plug-in chip-based laboratories. Various chips would be furnished with the unit that would be appropriate for different types of analyses. The entire unit would be connected to a computer to collect and analyze the data. There is even the possibility that these laboratories could be used in the home to perform analyses such as blood sugar and blood cholesterol and to check for the presence of bacteria such as E. coli and many others. This would revolutionize the health care industry. ... 

Most men and women have had their blood pressure measured at one time or another. But, bearing in mind that without knowing it, many individuals have either pressure above optimal levels or frank hypertension, if you haven t had a test lately, call your doctor s office and schedule an appointment. While you re there, it would be a good idea to have your cholesterol levels checked as well. Elevated cholesterol counts are not only a major risk factor for heart attack and stroke, in and of themselves, but they also predispose a person to developing hypertension. 

Especially in families with histories of cardiovascular disease and premature heart attacks and strokes, both blood pressure and cholesterol levels should be checked by the pediatrician or the family physician early in life. For reasons I personally cannot comprehend, there has been some controversy about doing so. It seems logical to me that a parent would want to know whether a son or a daughter has a greater than average potential to develop that disease later in life and to pay particular attention to encouraging a heart-healthy lifestyle in the entire family, complete with a heart-smart diet and plenty of physical activity. What parent would not want to give his or her child a future free of heart disease ... 

Bear in mind that niacin works to lower cholesterol levels and produce its other benefits at much higher doses than in the amount that s needed as a nutrient. In that regard, it is working like a drug in the liver to limit LDL and raise HDL production. Talk with your doctor about niacin in your own case to find out if there are reasons you shouldn t take it, such as existing liver problems. When you take niacin, your doctor will want to check your liver enzymes periodically to make sure your body is handling it without any problems. 

Italian and Spanish ohve oil from the 1991-1992 crop year contained a very high level of 9,19-cyclolanosterol (>400 mg/kg), which was not found with the standard method for sterol analysis. Two isomers of this sterol were identified by GC/MS of the unsaponifiable fraction, and their levels were found to be inversely proportional to the levels of p-sitosterol in the oils. GC/MS of the unsaponifiable fraction with high-resolution GC capillary columns provides a relatively rapid means of checking product purity and the identity of individual components. Thus, triterpene diols were identifiable at m/z 203, ot-tocopherol at m/z 165, squalene at m/z 69, cholesterol at m/z 386, and brassicasterol, characteristic of canola oil and other Brassica oils, at m/z 398. 

Accu-Check Instant Plus Cholesterol Boehringer Mannheim Corp. ... 

Prenatal care in first trimester/check-ups after delivery Cholesterol management after heart attack Use of appropriate medications for people with asthma Follow-up after hospitalization for mental illness Advising smokers to quit Medicare health outcomes survey... 

A man wants to buy simvastatin tablets because he says he wants to keep his cholesterol down. On questioning he tells you he is 40 years old. His body mass index, which you calculate from the weight and height measurements he gives you, is 22. He says that he is worried about having a heart attack, because he has a high-powered and stressful job and his father, who was born in India, had a heart attack at the age of 56. He says he had an annual health check recently and that no problems were identified and his cholesterol level was 5.2 mmol/l, He is a non-smoker. 

Patients are likely to have laboratory test abnormalities for the risk factors for IHD, such as elevated total and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, low high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, impaired fasting glucose or elevated glucose concentration, high blood pressure, and elevated C-reactive protein. Hemoglobin should be checked to make sure that the patient is not anemic. 

A 53-year-old male patient with elevated levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, signs of premature cholesterol gallstone disease and substantially elevated triglycerides visited his physician for a follow-up to check his current status. The patient had received various statin, HMG-CoA-reductase inhibitors therapies for the past 2 years. However, after blood work done at this follow-up visit, complications had still not subsided. This patient has similar problems as two of his siblings. Which of the following best explains this patients dyslipidemia ... 

Lipoprotein electrophoresis provides a relatively simple method to study gross changes of the major lipoproteins various support media, buffers systems, and electrophoretic equipment and detection reagents have been employed (Groulade et al. 1981 Oppermann, Hubner, and Ehlers 1983). Electrophoresis may also be used to check the suitability of some methods for HDL and LDL. The Friedewald formula is used to determine LDL-cholesterol with human samples by measuring plasma cholesterol, triglycerides, and HDL-cholesterol (Friedewald, Levy, and Fredrickson... 

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