I flew to Singapore to fix my cholesterol
What three months of discipline cost me, and what a thirteen-course dinner gave back.
The clinic sent my blood results over WhatsApp. Three months ago my LDL - the bad cholesterol - was 130. That counts as high. In short, not good.
This time it came back 150.
And that’s after three months with my self-discipline switch flipped to “full Soviet”. Clean eating, more cardio. None of the sweets I love, nothing fried, nothing interesting, nothing tasty, nothing happy.
I have a deep love for Napoleon cake (mille-feuille). A slab of artery-clogging margarine. The only reason I stop after half of one is that I have children to be responsible for.
I love to eat. A lot. The experiment took something out of my life.
And the bad cholesterol didn’t just fail to drop. It jumped.
I don’t have a regular doctor in Thailand, so I diagnosed myself - my problem is genetic.
The chat agreed with me. It suggested a genetic test to find the cause, and recommended a specific hospital in Singapore. Along the way I also found out that a new drug had come out - instead of a pill every day, two injections a year, around a 50% drop in LDL. About $6,000 a year.
I did a video call with the doctor. I bought a plane ticket.
In Singapore the doctor explained that there’s no point doing genetic testing in my situation. He was about my age, and said his cholesterol was around the same as mine. Instead of messing around with drugs that have under five years of use worldwide, I should take what everyone’s been taking for forty years - a small dose of statins.
He also explained that diet and exercise move cholesterol, for most people, by somewhere between 10 and 15 percent.
I finished with the doctor and booked a table for that evening at a Michelin restaurant. Thirteen courses.
First time I’d eaten at a Michelin restaurant. I was the only weirdo sitting alone.
Before each course the waiter brought me the main ingredients to look at and smell, and a small card explaining the dish.
The one that blew my mind was a clear soup of three kinds of mushroom, with some rare, fancy black pepper.
I’d been living in culinary black and white for months, and every bite of the interesting, tasty, happy food gave me back a little more color.
I flew back to Thailand. I started taking statins - the boring, ordinary drug. My latest results came back excellent.
Friends tell me statins are a pharma industry conspiracy. Could be.
I’m willing to give up a few years to eat in color.