Preventive Medicine by Barbara Quinn

I came through my physical this year with good numbers and that is something to be happy about and thankful for. Last year when my cholesterol was high, I decided to start taking some over-the-counter supplements. Green tea extract and policosanol seem to have done the trick. My cholesterol is down to 189 (from 220) and my other numbers, like triglycerides, were also good. The nice thing about these two supplements is they are reasonable ones that I can find at places like Wal-Mart.

Though I'd much rather linger in bed, I make it to the gym where I weight train twice a week, and take a cardio class twice a week. I feel better when I go and have more energy. My clothes are starting to fit a little better but I have more to lose according to my doctor. So I’ll keep at it and keep trying not to have that extra glass of wine with dinner, or that piece of cake for dessert. Well, at least not the whole piece of cake.

One of my secret weapons is tea bags. Remember how In A Big Fat Greek Wedding they were always using Windex? Well, my cure all is all things tea including tea bags. Usually I drink it, or take it in pill form like the Green Tea Extract, but one day a couple of years ago I read how tea was filled with anti-oxidants. I figured, why not use a tea bag on my face? (Yes, it does look weird when you do this.) I had a few things removed by my skin doctor and didn’t want to go through that again. So I started and stuck with the tea bag treatments. I haven’t had any additional growths since then. I told my dermatologist about this and he said it was pretty well documented that tea is good to put on the skin. Sheesh. They don’t do a very good job of letting anyone know, do they? So try it! Maybe there should be a saying, “A tea bag a day keeps skin cancer away.”

Take care of yourselves. Ain’t no one else who is going to do it for you. Trust in tea. You could do a whole lot worse. And a big "Thank You" to my doctors who have caught quite a few things over the years and kept me going.