appropriate to consider high cholesterol alone to be a significant threat to health.
A good question: Who suffers from high cholesterol? Thirty years ago, the answer was anyone whose cholesterol level was more than 240 and who had other risk factors, such as being overweight and smoking. The definition changed after the Cholesterol Consensus Conference in 1984; then it became anyone with a cholesterol level over 200, regardless of other risk factors. Today, the threshold is down to 180. And if you’ve had a heart attack, you’re in a totally different category: No matter how low your cholesterol level is, you’ll likely be prescribed a cholesterollowering medicine and told to maintain a low-fat diet. SEX ED: IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD Okay. So cholesterol is a good thing. But it’s not just about your brain’s wit, physical health, and future longevity. It’s also about a very important part of your lifestyle that typically gets shoved under the carpet in serious health books. I’m talking about your sex life. How sparky is it? Although I’m a neurologist, I treat a fair share of people who suffer from sexual dysfunction and are either impotent and avoid sex altogether or who hoard bottles of pills to help them out. You know about these pills—the ones that get advertised like candy on the evening news and promise to transform your sex life. My patients with sexual health woes obviously don’t come to me for that specifically, but it’s a noted problem when I ask them about that part of their life in addition to any neurological issues I am addressing. A quick anecdote. A seventy-five-year-old retired engineer came to see me with a variety of complaints, including insomnia and depression. He had been taking sleeping pills for the past forty years, and his depression had worsened in the two to three months prior to his appointment. At the time I saw him, he was actually taking a few drugs: an antidepressant, a medication for anxiety, and Viagra for erectile dysfunction. I first checked him for gluten sensitivity and discovered, to