Like many men moving through middle age, I had found my waist widening in a slow but sure manner. Because I am tall and big boned, the excess 20 pounds hardly showed. I told myself that it didn't much matter, because my wife still loved me. As a physician, I should have known better.
When I passed my 50th birthday, I decided it was time to check my cholesterol and I lost 20 pounds fast. My level was elevated, and the "bad" cholesterol (LDL) had risen while the "good" cholesterol (HDL) had fallen.
For a long moment, I stared at the test results in my internist's office. People joke that if you want to live into old age, then you should choose your parents wisely. Our genes powerfully dictate our susceptibility to disease. Every male on my father's side of the family had had a heart attack in his 50s, and my father died at a young age from coronary disease. As I stood nervously on the doctor's scale, I saw the sum of the past year's chocolate-covered peanuts, third slices of rye bread, and homemade brownies.




