I’m 45 years old, have never paid the slightest attention to proper diet, and basically been loaded with junk food since birth. Yet my total cholesterol is only 149. The nurse who gave me the results, and who knows something of my dietary habits, refused to believe that I’m not using some cholerterol-lowering medication, which I’m not.
I figure I have some kind of inborn cholesterol buster. Perhaps if it could be isolated, I could help a lot of people, and maybe even become steenkin’ rich. Any suggestions how to do this?
Do you have any unusually lucky health things that a lot of others would kill for?
Mine is low too - 39 years old, a smoker, and I’ve been doing that deadly Atkins diet for a year. My cholesteral is 168. My HDL is good too, but I can’t remember the exact number.
My head sweats asymetrically. After some exertion, the left side of my head looks barely damp, and the right side looks like I’ve been in a rain storm.
I don’t know, but if you figure something out let me know. I’ve survived 37 years of bratwurst etc. and have a cholesterol level of 132. My mom and sister are the same way - maybe there’s a hereditary factor?
Overall cholesterol level seems to be controlled more by genetics than diet. Diet changes alone usually produce only a small change in overall cholesterol levels. Which is why it’s suddenly Ok to eat eggs again.
It would be nice if there was an easy way to help those with genetically high levels tho’…
Perhaps you have inclusive tissue from a twin you absorbed in the womb. I’ve heard that up to 10% of us have tissue that is genetically different in parts of our bodies, because we had a twin for a breif time and it was absorbed. If the skin on one side of your head was seeded by a few cells from a fraternal twin that didn’t last long who would have grown up to be a heavy sweater, that would explain it.
My good cholesterol number was higher than my bad cholesterol number, but I keep in shape and take a bunch of anti-oxidants. My bad cholesterol was flagged as abnormally low, and my good as abnormally high in fact. I Don’t remember the actual numbers though, the silly military doctor didn’t let me look at them for more than a second, andnow that I’m out I don’t feel like contacting them.
IIRC Due to X chromosome inactivation on a per cell basis(early embryo I believe) in women some women have random patches of skin that contain no sweat glands whatsoever. This could be you.
I have found ticks upon my person that have died without ever becoming attached. I used to stop wristwatches and when I sent them in (Timex) they would send me a new watch because they were unable to get them to run again.
ponderer My father and sister and I have the watch thing. We can wear digital, but not analog watches. Analog watches die near their bodies. I have given up watches totally.
My father is tasty to fish - they swim up to him and bite him in any body of water we enter. (The rest of us watch and laugh.)
My father and I are not alergic to poison ivy (which is hugely handy, btw). My sisters may be as well, its not something we have tested out on purpose.
I ate southern cooking my entire life – lots of butter, gravy, bacon grease, butter, fried chicken, pork rinds, butter, and more butter. Not to mention over a dozen eggs a week… two to three every day most days.
My total cholesterol is typically about 125, with the HDL much, much higher than the LDL.
Also, mosquitos don’t bite me. Fleas don’t bite me. I’ve never had a chigger or a tick, despite growing up on the Savannah river in South Carolina. I am generally unappealing to insects. My sister, however, gets eaten alive at sunset when she goes camping.
I have epilepsy, big honking seizures. I finally went in to do a weeklong EEG study a year ago. The doctor comes in after I’ve been in there about five days.
Apparently people with EEG’s like mine are rarely able to function in society. He’s truly amazed. In other words, I have the EEG of an imbecile.
-Lil
Scientists (being one, myself . . . ) should investigate me for reasons I am not at liberty to elaborate upon, in a public forum, at least . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I’m also a smoker and a bad diet person. I don’t exercise if I can avoid it. And my doctor is not happy with me. Overall cholesterol is 137 - no idea of the HDL and LDL breakdown, but I do know the doctor told me they’re better than good - and lungs as clear as an infant’s. And I’m height-weight proportionate (well, a little on the low side weight-wise.) Doc said, “You know, it’d be a lot easier for me to lecture you about your bad habits if you weren’t so damned healthy.”
Re: analog watches stopping - I have a friend who does this. No watch has lasted more than a day on her, and all have been subsequently unfixable. An interesting side effect of the phenomenon for her was that when she was pregnant, if she turned on a light, the bulb blew. On one occasion as she walked down a hallway, every other light above her blew out.
I heard an interesting piece on NPR about human chimeras last summer but didn’t get much response when I brought it up in a thread. It’s an interesting idea, especially because the way I read it, not only could you have a “sibling’s” DNA in your body, that sibling could conceivably (so to speak) have one or two different parents than you (two would take some effort of course).
My good deal? I got bit by a spider as a kid and have since never experienced hunger. Can go for days without eating and not really notice. Women are always asking, “what kind of spider was that?”
When my guy got the flu last Christmas, we were self-quarentined together while I nursed him. After a while I started coming down with it, too. We prepared for the worst, but it only lasted two days for me. The third day I was as healthy and happy as a kid in springtime, and he was still suffering through it. Poor guy.
I don’t get poison ivy at all, and never have. I weed the flower bed and pull it up with my bare hands.
Oh, and my ex-boyfriend (waaaa-aaay back in “the day”) used to say his life was an experiment on how many drugs one person could do and still graduate from college with honors.
I hate you low cholesterol freaks. ::smiles–wryly:: Mine tends toward the moderate range, and that’s with a watchful diet. (God, I love cheese.) The doc says it’s genetic. Both sides of my family tend to stroke out. Hearts ya can’t kill with a club, but strokes galore. Damn.
On the plus side, my teeth are damned near indestructible–also genetic–and I don’t get poison ivy. I can handle the stuff with my bare hands and as long as I wash it off within a few hours, nothing happens.
On the strong minus side, I attract mosquitos like chum in a shark tank. White clothing, no perfumed anything, bug spray–doesn’t matter. I’ve even tried eating brewer’s yeast. Nada. No lie, everyone else can be completely undisturbed while I get bitten repeatedly through my clothing. And the bites immediately swell up, larger than quarters. In warm weather I quite literally keep tubes of After Bite in my purse, car, bedside table, bathroom, kitchen…
Why is it that my positive bodily quirks aren’t as immediate as the negative ones?