Kevin’s Corner on Exercise and Nutrition

Some of you may have gone over and read Dr. Mirkin from my pointers to his site. I recently sent him an email asking him to discuss more things that he has learned about Lp(a) on his site and shared my story of high levels of Lp(a). What he told me was very eye opening and came a little bit of relief, but before I got into the details….

A small bit of background on Dr. Mirkin before I share more. 

My grandfather was a competitive runner and competed locally and regionally and was friends with Dr. Mirkin. He called him Gabe. I When I was a kid and was suffering from an injury, my grandfather took me to see Dr. Mirkin.  I always remember our trip down to his office. It was a prett long drive to me because we had to drive from Baltimore down to Montgomery County just to the NW of Washington DC. I also knew Dr. Mirkin from a YMCA program in Baltimore called Run For Your Life (RFYL). My grandfather, John Anthony Beares, SR starting taking me and my sister there every Sunday when I was about 7 years old and we would run a one mile race. This is where I caught the running bug. So, in a way I have Dr. Mirkin to thank for contributing to my passion and love for exercise at such and early age. I ended up becoming a pretty competitive runner and would some times race the one mile and then the two mile race back to back when there was an opportunity to do that. Sometimes there was a large crowd so they would run the races seperately. I have fond memories of the time I spent there with my grandfather and his friends, I can still picture the neighborhood and the perople there. I remember going back there about 10 years ago on some weekday when I was in Baltimore for a business trip and I put on my running shoes and raced the old course for old time sake. It was pretty exilerating. I had more butterflies in my stomach then, than I have had in some of the bigger races I have competed in. Heck, I am feeling them right now as I am remembering this. :) Thanks again Dr. Mirkin for the memories, and your friendship over the years and Grandpop, if you are looking over my shoulder right now, know that I miss you and Dad more than words can describe.

OK, so onto the research. Apparently the normal levels of 0-30 being the healthy range may be off by a pretty large margin. Here is what Dr. Mirkin shared with me:

“The only drug treatment (For high Lp(a)) is niacin which is loaded with side  effects.  So the best way to combat Lp(a) is to do everything we know that prevents heart attacks.

The good news is that the most recent study covering 20,000 people showed that people with levels between 0-100 had the same risk for heart attacks and strokes as those with levels 100-200. That means that we have set the normal values too low. My guess is that you do not start to get into trouble until levels get above 125.  People with levels over 250 are at significant risk.”

This message reminded me again, that while you should definitely listen to your doctor’s advice, but you also should listen to your own concious and body and try not to get worked up too much over some of the guidelines out there on blood levels, especially in the cases of the new research. Heck, I just got an email from Dr. Mirkin that is making rethink what supplements I should take or be advising people to take. There is new research out that questions whether or not some supplements are healthy to take and possibly could put you at greater risk for disease than if you didn’t take them at all. I will share more on this later.

 If you are eating right (Yeah, so what does that mean?), exercising, keeping your body weight healthy, not smoking, getting enough sleep at night, limiting your alcohol consumption, and making changes to your lifestyle that eliminates stress than you are at least on a course to wellness. Even then you could still be at risk for disease.

I met someone today that looks like the picture of health and had a total cholesterol of almost 300! They just started taking Lipitor (only 10 mg). I asked her if she had made any modifications in her diet to see what effect that had on her cholesterol. She hadn’t. I told her to read my blog and maybe some of the advice that I have been able to put to words would give her some alternative ideas to taking the meds. I hated Lipitor. I about died on that stuff.

Catch you later.

Kevin