I was reading about iron in the blood and how men can end up with too much iron, while women can end up anemic. The difference is that women regularly "give blood", so to speak!
If you think about it, through much of human history, men "gave blood" too, through war and injury. But now Western modern life has been made much safer for men and they often don't lose any blood at all.
For about seven years, I took continuous oral contraceptives, which stopped me from having menstruation. So I too lost no blood at all for years. I have familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), which means that I naturally have very high LDL (even back when I was a vegan). I think that blood not leaving the system may make things build up for those with FH.
I think it is important for us to lose blood on a regular basis. Leeching used to be one of the main tools doctors used, way back when! I think that losing blood might be good for us, in that it cleans out the system and causes fresh blood to be produced.
For men, it might be a good policy to give blood regularly to prevent iron buildup!
I quit oral contraceptives over a year ago, so I have regular menses again. I'm retaking a cholesterol test and we'll see if "giving blood" maybe will make a small difference in my LDL, keeping in mind that I have FH and it will still be high. Just maybe not quite as high!
I wanted to mention that I have had a CT heart scan as well as a tri-vascular scan and multiple other tests, and got excellent scores on them. So having a high LDL in and of itself with no other risk factors does not mean cardiovascular risk, in my opinion!
In other news, I have run out of lamb and am now trying to keep my fats up with just grassfed beef. It is really difficult! There are only few local producers of grassfed beef, for one, and the cuts tend to be very, very lean. So I'm hoping to find more sources for lamb!
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Grassfed beef chuck roast with sea salt flakes
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