I had my appointment with my cardiologist today. After a few minutes of discussing some other test results -- and him spending 5 minutes extolling the virtues of Dean Ornish -- I asked him what sort of quantative measures of improvement he would use.

"Oh, mostly blood tests" he said. "A lipid panel is probably the most important measurement we can make.

"Yeah, " I said. "I'd heard that. Well, my primary care doctor ran a lipid panel back in February before he started me on Atkins. You probably have that in my file."

He looked. "Yep. It's here. Your total cholesterol isn't terrible, but your LDL and triglycerides aren't so good."

I was almost in pain from resisting the urge to smile. "Here's the repeat panel from about 10 days ago." I showed it to him. He was quiet for a minute, and just flipped back and forth between the two results.

"Uh, well, that's certainly better...." He wasn't very enthusiastic.

I was all innocence. "Is that a satisfactory improvement over just a few months? Are there any other important measures we should check?"

"No...no, this is good. This is good." He looked kind of stunned. "Did, uh, did your regular doctor start you on one of the 'statins' at the same time?" he asked.

"Nope. This is completely due to Atkins. Any reason for me not to continue with it?" He was still pretty subdued.

"No, I guess not. We'll want to watch things though."

I finally did smile at him.

"You hate this, don't you?" I said.

"Yes, " he admitted. "I still don't think Atkins is a heart-healthy diet. In fact, I have to admit I still think it's a terrible diet. But on the other hand, I can't argue that these results are good." He started to hand them back to me.

"No, no," I said. "Let's just put 'em in the file." He was definitely not happy. "Have you ever actually read Dr. Atkins' book?" I asked.

"No, " he said. "I haven't."

"Maybe, " I gently said, "you should. "

---

He probably forgot all about this conversation before he was in to see his next patient, but it was sweet for me.

-M.