Lester Traband's Yearly Checkup

My patient Les Traband came in for his yearly checkup. He was not over­ weight and had been following a vegetarian diet for years. I did a dietary review of what he ate regularly. He was eating "healthy" flaxseed waffles for breakfast, lots of pasta, whole-wheat bread, and vegan (no animal prod­ ucts) preparedfrozen meals on a regular basis.

I spent about thirty minutes pointing out that he was certainly not fol­ lowing my dietary recommendations for excellent health and presented him with some menu suggestions and an outline of my nutritional prescription for superior health, which he agreed to follow.

Twelve weeks later, he had lost about eight pounds and I rechecked his lipid profile, because I didn't like the results we received from the blood test taken the day of his checkup.

The results speak for themselves:

2/1/2001                      5/2/2001

Cholesterol                          230                                 174

Triglycerides                        226                                 57

HDL                                        55                                  78

LDL                                       130                                 84

Cholesterol/HDL ratio          4.18                               2.23