24. A Blood-Sucking Saga

My colleague pings me on the intranet messenger about an hour into my office time on the first day of the week to inform me that there is a free cholestrol screening going on in one of the office rooms near the Cafeteria. I am not so keen to undergo such a test as I feel myself to be in the apple of my health (or some such good feeling which you usually read inside health magazines). This colleague of mine, however, convinces me to have this test, after all its free and brings in a peace of mind! Well, if I am already having my peace of mind, I don't have anything to gain by this test. What provoked me, however, to undergo this test was something I couldn't convey to him; to put a stop to his rationalizing arguments was a good enough reason for me!

At 11:00AM, I find myself hopping my way to the screening room, not aware that the test involves sucking blood from the finger tips! Yup! The doc puts on her disposable gloves and asks me to hand her one of my fingers! I won't specify which one of my fingers felt the needle, as I want my blog to be available for all ages. Without detailing out the blood sucking process, let me straight away divulge the results of the test:

Total Cholestrol (200 or less) : 183 mg/dl
HDL Cholestrol (40 or higher) : 47 mg/dl
Cholestrol/HDL Ratio (4.5 or less) : 3.9 mg/dl
Glucose (fasting: 110 or less, non-fasting: 130 or less) : 87 mg/dl

Hurray! That was a no-test for me! I passed all the barriers with much to spare! When I revealed this to my colleague, he got quite concerned of his HDL Cholestrol count, which came in the mid-20 range. Until then he was calm with the knowledge that all of our other Indian colleagues had ratings just like him, and it was considered by them to be quite normal for the Indian populace! I now happened to be the swan amongst the crows much to my delight and his distress.

A week later, while accompanying me for an evening walk, he asks me how I managed to have such a good HDL rating. After all, unlike him I don't expend much time at the gym, nor do I have a special dietary plan. Now it was my turn to play my trumpet, and I remember mentioning to him that its not only the diet, but also how good your body is in digesting what you feed it. The breathing exercises (Pranayama) that I routinely do in the mornings definitely had a hand in my good score!

These days, I find my colleague spending less time at the gymnasium and more at home making noises from his nose!