TN50#160_Good For The Heart, Good For The Brain_08 April_2024
Hi Team,
Do you know your apoB number?
I have a problem, it’s this pesky little thing called high cholesterol, more importantly my apoB is currently 116. My panel says this is moderately high and that it should be below 90. Dr. Peter Attia (Attia) says it should be down, around 30, which is what measurable levels are for babies. Read on and I’ll tell you what I’m going to do about it.
Happy Monday and Eclipse Day and welcome to The Next 50 #160. I like to think of personal performance in 3 components: physical, mental and emotional. My frameworks focus on 4 Buckets: Eat, Sleep, Move and Think. This blog is my sandbox for sharing information that you might find useful for your personal performance.
What do you do when a certain way of eating makes your life pretty dog gone good, except for this one thing? Good energy, no/low inflammation, no hunger and good body composition AND high apoB. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do; based on MANY years of hearing how bad and how good they are. I’m starting a low dose statin. Dun, dun duuuuuuun!!!! (dramatic orchestra in the background).
I’ve heard a lot of smart people I respect say that statins are the devil and a lot of people I respect say statins are great. I’m not a fan of medications, which is kind of funny because I take a lot of supplements, I’ve even played around with berberine to see the effects on my lipids but there is something about medications… Right?
Like I’ve said in past articles, I know a lot of very healthy people who have taken statins for years with great outcomes; and others who fell in that small camp of folks who have muscle pain from the statins, so they stopped taking them.
The thing that has recently made me more interested in lowering my apoB is Attia constantly reminding me that, “if it’s good for the heart its good for the brain”. It makes total sense right? If I improve my circulatory health over all that obviously includes the circulatory health of my brain!
Check this out:
Coronary artery disease may lead to dementia through its association with brain small vessel disease. Small vessel disease in turn disturbs CBF regulation and perfusion, disrupts the blood–brain barrier, and leads to an increased susceptibility to neurological insults. (article)
I’m not a doctor so I would never tell you what to do or not do but I’d be happy to tell you how to better understand your lipid numbers and get smarter on the topic over all, so send me your thoughts and questions on this one to: alex@fpp.llc.
I’ll stop here for now, as I go down this road I’ll report back with any observations and an updated apoB in a few months.
Who do you know that could use this information? I bet you can think of a couple of folks before you click the next email, so please share the post with your team and anyone who might find it useful and let me know what you think!
Have a good one, Alex
PS. Do you have a Performance question I can answer? Let me know: alex@fpp.llc
PPS. If you’re new to First Principles Performance Coaching, here’s a one stop shop for my stuff.
