[btilly]

Your anecdotal report that diet and exercise did not have a huge effect on your cholesterol does not discount the mountain of evidence that we have showing that diet and exercise has a huge effect on health and lifespan.

These effects were first demonstrated in 1953. And has been confirmed over and over again since.

So don't discount the value of diet and exercise just because losing weight didn't fix your cholesterol.

[zzzeek]

yeah I read all that and it's why i did "diet" (already exercised) first.

still doesnt explain what my cardiologist was talking about, though. he's not the first dr. to tell me that "diet isn't really going to help you much". one dr. said, "if you went totally vegan, maybe it would have a slight effect". so no I didnt go totally vegan.

i think the idea is diet/exercise can make a 20 point dent in your total cholesterol but in practice, not much more than that, if you have total cholesterol over 250 kind of thing.