Aerobic base - Effects on cholesterol and blood pressure

Hey Docs,

I just received some mildly elevated diagnostics from my last checkup with my family doc. BP was elevated in the office (140/60), and has been 128/75 on average of me taking readings daily for the last 5 days at home. My cholesterol numbers were 232 total, 170 LDL, 40 HDL, 92 triglycerides. My doc is sending me a nutrition guidelines packet and has recommended 2.5 hours of exercise per week and retesting blood work in 6-12 months.

Here’s the problem:

  1. The nutrition guidelines that are laid out are already something I adhere to (reduced sat fat, high fiber, more fruits/veggies/whole grains, etc)
  2. I already train about 5 hours a week
  3. I am male, 33 years old, 5’10", 179 lbs, 34" waist, non smoker, moderate alcohol intake, no recent weight gain (been maintaining weight for around 5-6 months at this point) So this has me believing that these numbers are indicative of some genetic factors. However, I will be honest - I do basically NO conditioning.

My question here is should I see if adding sufficient conditioning work improves my blood work in 6-12 months, or would you recommend following up with the doc sooner rather than later and trying to look at other factors here? Are there generally other things I may be missing here?

Thanks!
Lee

Hey Lee,

You would likely see some benefits from adding conditioning to your training, although I would not expect this change to precipitate miraculous changes in your lipid panel all the way to the “goal” target of non-HDL-C < 130 (yours is 192).

With that said, based on the information you’ve provided you are otherwise at very low cardiovascular risk at the moment, and there is not any urgency to the situation. You may be right that there are genetic factors at play (do you have a family history of lipid or cardiovascular issues?), and it may be worth checking your thyroid function as well.

Thanks you your response is much appreciated. Yes my mother’s parents and her older brother had a history of early cardiovascular related deaths, although I do not know all the details. My father has had very elevated triglycerides most of his adult life but that doesn’t seem to be an issue here on my results. I was also surprised by a 106 fasting glucose on my results, given that past results for me have been in the 70s.