Customer Reviews

Controlling Cholesterol For Dummies (For Dummies (Health & Fitness))

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As with many of the "For Dummies" series, Controlling Cholesterol is a well-executed overview of many issues relevant to cholesterol. Author Carol Rinzler's light and humorous discussion ranges from a concise description of what cholesterol is, to many of the different approaches to lowering cholesterol and why "target" values for cholesterol can differ in different people. There's an especially helpful discussion on the effects of various popular diets like Atkins', Sugar Busters, and Protein Power -- pluses and minuses of each.

"Ten Cholesterol Myths" in Chapter 16 is a great discussion that can help clear up much of the murkiness surrounding cholesterol issues and can help answer many of the questions that I am asked when treating cholesterol in my patients (in my cardiology practice).

One criticism: Like all books about cholesterol, Controlling Cholesterol for Dummies gives the reader the impression that high cholesterol is the only way to identify risk for heart disease, as well as a means of diminishing risk of heart attack. This is patently untrue, but not really a criticism of this book as it is of the standard thinking on cholesterol. There are better ways! Nonetheless, this book does serve its intended purpose very well: educate the reader thoroughly on the conventional understanding of cholesterol.

This is a fantastic book for learning all about the cholestrol which is the reason why I bought it. However, after I read it, I was pleasantly surprised to find this book to be better than most popular "diet" books out there. It's straight forward (with humor!), contains lots of informative facts, many handy references (web sites, phone numbers, statistics etc.,), considerate of the reader and not out to please any interest groups (i.e., honest). What more can you ask for! This book is well worth your money.

I was told by my Dr. to either use diet or pills to control my cholesterol. This book clearly dicusses everything I needed to know about both options, or maybe a combination of both. It is easy to read and understand (and even has a little humor tossed in). I defintely reccomend this for anyone wanting or needing to control their cholesterol.

This book is full of helpfull information. It is fairly uptodate concidering they keep lowering the recommended cholesterol levels every year. Its not to hard ro read. The terms and explanations are easly understood.

When my cholesterol levels went sky high, I started a proactive
approach to do all that I could to lower them . . . one thing I've
been doing is to read all I can about the subject, including
CONTROLLING CHOLESTEROL FOR DUMMIES (2nd ed.)
by Carol Ann Rinzler.

This informative guide contained all the information I wanted
to know about the subject--and then some . . . I could have done
without some of the material that was surprisingly technical, and
53 pages at the end about calories and other nutrients in food
were about 52 too many for me.

Yet that's not to say that much else of the rest of the information
made it a most worthwhile book for me to have read . . . I learned,
for instance, about something called BMI or body mass index:

* BMI is a unisex measure of weight relative to height, a number--such
as 24--that serves as a predictor of your risk for weight-related
illnesses, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease,
stroke, gallbladder disease, and arthritic pain. The higher your
number, the higher your risk . . .

The equation looks like this:

BMI = (weight in pounds/height in inches x height in inches) x 705

To get your own BMI, plug your numbers into the BMI equation.
For example, if you're 5' 3" tall and weight 138 pounds, the result
is 24.5.

Its significance lies in the fact that after you do the computation,
you can effectively use it to view the various categories of BMI
(and what they mean):

Underweight: BMI lower than 18.5.

Normal: BMI of 25 to 29.9 (A moderate risk of weight-related
health problems.)

Overweight: BMI of 25 to 29.9. (A moderate risk of weight-related
health problems. For reference, BMI of 25 is about 10 percent
over ideal body weight.)

Obese: BMI of 30 to 39.9. (High risk of weight-related health problems.)

Extremely obese: BMI over 40. (The highest risk of weight-related
health problems.)

I also learned more about such foods that I used to like; e.g.,
coconut:

* Yes, trying to knock open a fresh coconut uses up calories. Yes,
coconut meat is high in dietary fiber, and like other nuts, it's a good
source of B vitamins. Yes, a single 2-inch square piece of fresh coconut
meat has 1.09 mg of iron (7.3 percent of the recommended daily
allowance for a woman of child-bearing age), and 0.49 mg of zinc
(3.3 percent of the recommended daily allowance for a man,
4 percent of the recommended daily allowance for a woman). And
of course, the coconut, being a plant, has no cholesterol.

Can you sense a "but" coming here? Right you are. But that same
2-inch square piece of coconut contains 15 g of coconut oil, the fat
that accounts for 85 percent of the calories in coconut meat.

Coconut oil is 89 percent saturated fatty acids, which makes it an
even more highly saturated fat than butter.

Yet there was also good news, such as this tidbit:

* But don't forget the chocolate or at least the very special new
chocolate from Canada. In the summer of 2007, Ocean Nutrition
Canada Limited, a company that makes and distributes omega-3
food and dietary supplement ingredients, announced that the 0 Trois
line of chocolate bars and "fingers" from Les Truffles
au Chocolat, would henceforth contain omega-3 fatty acids.
Who can ask for anything more?

Do read CONTROLLING CHOLESTEROL if you or any family member
of friend has to deal with this problem . . . you may not become the
word's greatest expert on the subject, but you will learn enough
so as to be able to reduce cholesterol limits without going on
any sort of crazy diet.

This book would be good for someone who knows nothing about cholesterol. It goes into great length to explain the physical side. I mainly wanted to know which foods to eat or not eat and some lo-cholesterol recipes. Not there.

This is a great reference book for those of us fighting the dreaded cholesterol monster. I can say no more than that it is worth the money and a must have.

Having to recently begin watching my cholesterol I purchased this book as I thought it would be the easiest and quickest book to help me understand eating and cookiing. However, I found it more confusing than anything else and very similar to any other book as far as technical information, though, it tried to be "cute" a lot. I would have been interested in sample menus and clearly posted lists showing foods to avoid etc. The chapters on 10 foods to avoid and 10 foods to include were interesting but not enough and too much information and disclaimers throughout the book.

This book helped me learn about the cholesterol medicines you can take for cholesterol problems. It has their names and terms are explained for people that know very little about cholesterol.

I was in need of a Simple Start for Controlling my Cholesterol- In my opinion the " Dummies Series" in most any type of
self help needs- I find a good place to start. And once again I found that to be true to a point. Just understanding the Terminology of which Fat is the most important to Alter Quickly. This series was helpful.
I would suggest it to others- who are looking for the " Basic Starting Point"
I always Start any search for any type of information with Amazon. And seldom have they let me down. I will continue to check
Amazon before any other type of Book.
This is an " Amazon Reviewed Item".