Lipids are measured by analyzing a blood specimen. Eating before the blood test does not affect the level of blood cholesterol. However, it has an effect of the blood triglyceride level. Because both are usually measured from the same specimen, youfor a minimum of 12 hours before your blood is drawn. Do not drink alcohol for a full 24 hours before the test. If you follow these guidelines, your physician will have an accurate measure of your cholesterol, triglycerides, and other blood lipids, rather than depending on unreliable data that merely reflect when and what you last ate.Fasting before a blood test for lipids does not mean that your results will be precisely the same day after day, even if you make no change in your diet, exercise, or medications. Your lipid levels may vary by about 10 percent from day to day. The importance of a blood test for lipids, therefore, is not to detect small changes in results to make a large issue out of whether a particular value is several points “too high.” Rather, it is to establish in a general sense what your risk level is, and to determine whether the response to diet, exercise, or medication is satisfactory.*240\252\8*

Although manipulative methods are mainly applicable only by another person, there is one limited — but usually effective — technique which the patient may apply to himself. In cases of distressing spasm in the heart region, relief from the pain can often be achieved by the following: With the fingers and thumb of the right hand  slightly fanned—each separated from its neighbours by about a finger’s width — rest the tip of the thumb in the notch at the top of the breastbone. The tips of the index and middle fingers will now be found to lie in two shallow, adjacent grooves between the ribs. Pushing the tips of these fingers into the flesh, keep the pressure on firmly for as long as seems necessary to ease the distress. Usually about a minute is enough. Please be quite clear: this is not a curative treatment; it is merely a harmless method of gaining relief.
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