Home Cholesterol Tests

The author of the following article grew up at a time when no one had even heard of a home cholesterol test. The absence of that in-home test might have been partly responsible for the untimely and early death of the author’s father. The author suspects that her father would have eaten much less ice cream if he could have had access to a home cholesterol test. The family could have posted the test results on the refrigerator door. That would probably have reduced the number of nights when the author’s father chose to scrape the sides of an ice cream carton.

Sometimes, a person who expects to take a home cholesterol test expresses decided dissatisfaction with the requirements that such a test puts on the future test subject. After all, before taking a home cholesterol test, one must first fast for 12 hours. Yet anyone who remembers a world in which there was no home cholesterol tests seldom complains about fasting for cholesterol test taking.

When someone can enjoy the convenience of a home cholesterol test, then he or she can also schedule that test in a way that facilitates the endurance of a 12 hour fast. That convenience was denied to all those who have had to appear at a clinic, hospital or the door of a doctor’s office in order to take one of the more-dated cholesterol tests. Those older tests usually commenced in the morning.

Now the scheduling of the older cholesterol tests certainly managed to accommodate the needs for a great many patients. No one could question the fact that a majority of the population worked or attended classes during the day and did their sleeping at night. For such individuals, a nighttime 12 hour fast never presented the test subject with an unexpected challenge. 

Think, however, about the trials that must have been experienced by any poor soul who had a night job and then heard that he or she needed to take a cholesterol test. Such an individual would have had to fast while on the job. Then he or she would have been unable to enjoy a good breakfast upon returning home.

That was, of course, before the introduction of the home cholesterol test. The appearance of test kits that can be used in a home setting has reduced the problems that once faced anyone without a traditional daytime job. On the other hand, the arrival of the home cholesterol test has not sent a message that all test kits must be used within the home.

High schools, colleges and universities can use the home cholesterol tests to promoted better health practices among their students. Employers might consider paying for distribution to employees of home cholesterol test kits. That would encourage the employees to limit their fat intake. An employee who was committed to a reduced-fat diet would be at decreased risk for a heart attack.

The distribution of such kits could be of greatest benefit to the employer who must send many employees out “on the road.”  When travels have forced anyone to eat out repeatedly, they have typically led to an increase in the cholesterol level of that same traveler.  By using a home cholesterol test, a traveling worker could better monitor his or her food intake at restaurants.  In that way, such a worker could more easily see the benefits of staying with a high-fiber, low-fat diet.