NIH Radio
NHLBI "TLC" Guide Aims to Lower Cholesterol
Brief Description:
The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute has put out a new booklet to help people with high blood cholesterol make the necessary lifestyle changes to reduce their risk for heart disease.
Transcript:
Akinso: The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute has put out a new booklet to help people with high blood cholesterol make the necessary lifestyle changes to reduce their risk for heart disease. All it takes, according to the booklet, is a little "TLC" — and that means, "Therapeutic lifestyle changes." The booklet, Your Guide to Lowering Your Cholesterol with TLC, details a three part program of diet, physical activity, and weight management designed to bring cholesterol levels down according to Dr. James Cleeman, Coordinator of the National Cholesterol Education Program.
Cleeman: The booklet is intended to help the 65 million Americans who have high cholesterol get their cholesterol down to their goal level for LDL bad cholesterol by using lifestyle changes namely diet, physical activity, and weight control. And the booklet offers a whole set of tools that people can use to be successful in doing that. Lifestyle is the cornerstone of cholesterol lowering treatment. So if you have high cholesterol diet, physical activity, or weight control are very important; but it's not enough just to say "do it"! You have to help people do it. So these are the tools in this booklet that can help people really do it.
Akinso: The booklet offers a step-by-step program to get people moving and includes a chart of calories burned in common activities. Dr. Cleeman said TLC is more than a diet; it gives you a chance to keep your heart healthy. And who among us wouldn't benefit from a little "TLC" ? For an online version of the booklet, visit www.nhlbi.nih.gov. This is Wally Akinso at the National Institutes of Health Bethesda, Maryland.
About This Audio Report
Date: 9/15/2006
Reporter: Wally Akinso
Sound Bite: Dr. James Cleeman
Topic: Cholesterol
Institute(s): NHLBI
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