The Associated Press is reporting that “Years of progress fighting cholesterol might have stalled with the recession, says a huge study from one of the largest health laboratories in the U.S.” Because when times are tight, that dollar menu at McDonald’s sure seems awfully tempting.
According to the Quest Diagnostics study, LDL cholesterol levels, which declined 13 per cent from 2001 to 2008, have started trending upwards again. “The Great Recession began about the same time,” study author Harvey Kaufman told the AP, which also noted “He wonders if higher unemployment and financial stress affected medication use, diet or other factors to explain the findings.” Apparently, when you lose your job, life-saving heart-disease medication is the first thing you cut back on—at least in the States, where you can’t get a reasonably-priced check-up without health insurance.
Then again, the study does have its detractors. As Dr. Donna Arnett, president of the American Heart Association told the AP, “This kind of study isn’t representative of the entire population and could merely reflect that healthier people skipped cholesterol tests during tight financial times,” cuz without health insurance, even those cholesterol tests can be expensive. At least I’d assume so. We don’t seem to have that problem up here in Canada…
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