Richard Furman - Take Charge of Your Cholesterol

My quest to help people get healthy all began when I realized I was treating patients symptoms, but what they needed was information about prevention. So many things affect your health, and many health problems can be prevented if you simply learn what you are doing that harms your health as well as what you can do to enhance it.

Cholesterol and fats have been subjects of much interest lately in the news. You may have read recently that it is not cholesterol but sugar that damages your arteries. Some news articles you may read say it is now safe to eat fats. But medical research has affirmed that over half of deaths are caused by disease in the arteries of the heart and the brain that results in heart attacks and strokes. So what information should a person rely on concerning cholesterol and fats?

Since the aging process is determined by the health of your arteries, it is important for you to know the truth about cholesterol and fats and the effect each has on blood vessels. There are ways to prevent processes that damage your arteries, and knowing what you should be doing is the key to good health.

That is why I would like to become your personal book doctor. There is medical information you need to know. The more you understand your health from a medical perspective, the easier it will be for you to develop lifestyles that will improve your health. I realize you have a physician who knows your medical history and physical condition. I do not want to change one thing they have told you to do or not to do. If you ever have a question concerning your health or medication, I refer you to your doctor, who knows your specific conditions.

However, personal physicians rarely have the time to go into the details of your health as thoroughly as you are going to read about in this book. You may have recently been prescribed a statin drug to lower your cholesterol and told you need to lose weight and exercise. You were probably given a pamphlet or instruction sheet explaining the side effects you may encounter from the medicine. Your doctor may have explained the basic concept of what is going on in your body. Those instructions are good building blocks. But you also need information that will help you prevent problems that will likely occur unless you make changes. That is why I wrote this book.

This book provides a review of the medical literature in terms you can understand. You will learn what your cholesterol numbers mean and why they are so important to your health. After reading this book, you will never have to ask yourself whether you should eat certain fats or not. You will learn the bad fats to avoid and the good fats to eat plenty of.

Your eating habits will change, not because I or your doctor or someone else tells you to avoid particular foods but because you will know what each bite of certain foods can do to your arteries and how the damage those foods can cause leads to heart attacks and strokes. You will look at some foods you now enjoy with a completely different attitude because you will have learned what they are doing to you and how they determine your future. The more you learn medically, the more you will want to not eat the bad and to eat the good.

You will develop a personal exercise program that fits your condition. You will learn about medical research that shows the amazing benefits of doing some form of exercise and the positive impact exercise has on your cholesterol levels. You may not start out enjoying your physical activity, but you will do it as regularly as if you were taking a prescription of exercise medicine for your health.

Losing weight also improves your cholesterol levels. Only 12 percent of Americans are at their ideal weight. You will learn what the medical literature has to say about the effect being overweight or obese has on your overall health and will learn some essentials to losing excess weight and keeping it off.

What you are about to read is not based on my ideas. It is based on what the medical literature has to say. This book was written by a physician who wants to help as many patients as possible learn how to protect their most prized possession: their health. The information in this book is what you need to know whether you are in your thirties or your eighties. It will explain what is going on in your body from a medical perspective.

I want to become your book doctor so we can go over what cholesterol levels mean to your health in more detail than you would get in an office visit. Not only will the advice in this book help you take charge of your cholesterol, but if you diligently apply the suggestions, you can also turn your physiological age clock back quite a few years. Yes, you will add extra years to your life. But even more important, those years will be active, quality yearsbeginning today.

I look forward to many follow-up office visits with you.

Your book doctor, Richard Furman, MD, FACS