An Atkins/Eades blend wasn't as good for my cholesterol as the last six
months of Paleo have been.  For the first time ever (or at least for as long
as I've been getting regular blood tests done) *all* my numbers are in the
*normal* range.

I've been not only basking in the glow of paleo this past week but also
gloating because the sob cardiologist yelled at me in a very ugly tone of
voice, "Mrs. Baker, STATINS are the ONLY thing proven to normalize lipids,"
when I told him I preferred to use diet and exercise.  I hope he has since
eaten a large platter of figurative crow.

My HDL (which has ranged in the past from not very good to plain dismal on a
SAD diet ) has declined somewhat while on Paleo.  Not sure what accounts for
this or how to go about raising it, but it may be confounded by the beta
blocker (a known antagonist) I take for the arrythmia problem and by the
1mg. of natural testosterone begun a month ago.  Nevertheless, the HDL meets
the newly revised reference range and exceeds the old one.

As for other numbers, from Atkins to Paleo my TC has dropped an additional
27% (from 233 to 171), LDL 30% (173 to 121), VLDL 36% (15.4 to 9.8), TR 36%
(77 to 49, this was a big surprise), TC:HDL 17% (5.18 to 4.3), and TR:HDL
28% (1.71 to 1.22).  Not bad, I think.

Additionally, my homocysteine level has dropped 12%, from 8.2 to 7.2. And my
C-Reactive Protein, which was already low at <0.35, has declined an
astonishing 71% to <0.10.  On this the lab made the notation "verified by
repeat analysis."

I know the importance of cholesterol numbers is an arguable topic on this
list, but given my family history (my mother had dyslipidemia and died at
age 53 of an MI) and the fact that I *never* had normal reference numbers on
a SAD diet or Ornish or even Atkins, I find it extremely interesting that
Paleo is the only diet that for me results in what the scientific community
recommends.

Theola