Preventive lipostasis: spawning lipochondria.

ABSTRACT

Preventive lipostasis, ie lowering/controlling the various lipid levels to protect the coronaries from atherosclerosis, is firmly entrenched in modern therapeutics, to the point of being an almost knee-jerk prescription to every cardiac patient, a genureflexopathy of some sort. Enforced lipostasis through dietary measures and drugs has spawned a new syndrome characterised by an obsession with lowering the levels of lipids with the much-celebrated statins and by a fanatical abstinence from fats, and as a by-product, it has robbed cuisines of the joys of fat. Alex Comfort, better known for his best-selling The joys of sex, had penned another mini-classic, The anxiety makers – the curious preoccupation of the medical profession. The new syndrome has been named lipochondria, the sound of which harmonises well with that of the well-recognised hypochondria. A reassessment of lipostasis, lipophobia and lipochondria seems overdue.